The Blind Leading the Dumb
by Alias Erotavlas
Summary: In one lifetime, Naruto would go right and take the fastest route to the orphanage. In that lifetime, he would go on being lonely and hated for another six years. He wouldn't know of his heritage for another four after that after great death and destruction...In this lifetime, however, Naruto went left and saw a giant ferret carrying grocery bags. Slow AU.
1. Prologue

~Prologue~

* * *

Being an orphan was no fun. This was not news to Naruto. He would never have expected it to be. Not having parents tended to be a bit of a bummer for anyone, young or old. He could put up with being a little unhappy, he had an optimistic disposition, after all. But that disposition only went so far. He could be pushed into negativity if the situation was right.

But what made the situation just so for pessimism? Well, being kicked out of playing ninja by the other orphans never hurt (or did hurt, his feelings, that is). Then being yelled at by the employee on watch at the orphanage for "scaring the other children" (which wasn't true either, the little girl had started crying because she tripped over a root that was in front of him, but that didn't stop it from being _his_ fault). After that, Naruto decided to hell with them and hopped over the back fence. If he couldn't enjoy himself here, he would find somewhere else to get his jollies. He decided that the marketplace would be a great place to pull a few pranks. He liked pranks. They made people mad over something other than the other reason they were always mad at him for (which he didn't know, but was sure was worse than being a prankster). As soon as he got close to the market, however, an old man began yelling at him to get away from them. He kept shouting nonsense about how Naruto would "ruin the food with his evil nature". A woman much younger than him came out of the shop and escorted the senile grandpa back inside, but the look she shot him as she did so was one Naruto was _very_ familiar with. It was a look cold, mean, and utterly unpitying. It was a look that froze him in his tracks.

It was a look that made an optimist a pessimist, if only for an afternoon.

Naruto tucked himself into an alcove between shops after that and sulked. He was six, after all. It wasn't like he was going to get into an ennui brought on by the cruel nature of mankind. So he sulked. He sulked for a good long while until the sun began to set and the sky turned orange. If he wasn't in the orphanage before it got dark, he'd get in trouble. As if he wouldn't get in trouble anyway...

So, he decided to head "home". Naruto sighed, looking up from the swirls he'd made in the dirt with a stick he had found, and stood.

He slowly began to walk towards the orphanage, not really in the mood to be yelled at for leaving or being late or whatever other reason they would come up with when he got there.

In another lifetime, Naruto would go right and take the fastest route to the orphanage. He'd get off with a mild scolding and a night in the drafty old attic. In that lifetime, he would go on being lonely and hated for another six years. He wouldn't know of his heritage for another four after that after great death and destruction. He wouldn't learn his biggest secret until a manipulative white-haired bastard told him out of spite.

In this lifetime, however, Naruto went left and saw a giant ferret carrying grocery bags.

* * *

 **A/N:** Hoo boy. How long has it been since I've written anything on this site? Four years? Oy.

Anyway. Hello again, FFN community. I hope you enjoyed the introduction to my (sort of) new story. It always bothered my how Naruto never really had a reliable guardian when he was a kid. Sure the Sandaime Hokage watched over him when he could and Iruka looked after him during school hours, but he never really had anyone to teach him how to do anything. That's why I've always taken umbrage with people who say Naruto is stupid. _Of course_ , he's inexperienced, he didn't have any real educational basis in his life until he was twelve. Can you imagine how much more stupid we'd all be if we didn't start school until we were twelve? Also did Kushina and Minato just not have any friends that would have been ok with looking after Naruto? Were they really that unlikeable?

Thus, Maru and her fabulous ferret Chi were born. I hope you enjoy their antics.

 **Edited: 1/8/19**


	2. Chapter 1: A Giant Ferret with Groceries

~Chapter 1: A Giant Ferret with Groceries~

* * *

Naruto did not know how to process the sight before him. Oh, he knew the elements that went into it: A ferret and grocery bags. However, these two things didn't seem to be able to come together in his mind.

He found himself asking prudent questions such as: "why is there a ferret in the marketplace?" and "why is it so big?"

"Why is it carrying groceries?" he asked himself out loud. Why his brain chose to voice that question, in particular, we'll never know. The six-year-old mind is quite the enigma. Especially Naruto's. But all of the questions he was asking himself culminated in one blanket thought:

"I have to follow that giant grocery-carrying ferret."

So he did.

* * *

After about fifteen minutes of walking and a great many twists and turns, the ferret stopped in front of a simple one-story house. It didn't look much different than any of the other houses in the neighborhood. Well, other than the giant ferret opening its door.

Naruto rushed up behind the ferret just as it was shutting the door with its back paw. He blocked the door with his arm.

"Eh-! Uh! Excuse me!" Naruto attempted to use his manners, despite the ache in his crushed arm, "Are you a giant ferret?!"

The inanity of the question was lost on a mind as young and oblivious as his. It was, quite obviously, a ferret of the giant variety.  
A fact it confirmed verbally with a slightly amused "yes".

Naruto stared wide-eyed at the fuzzy mammal before him, "You can talk?!"

"Uh huh," the ferret's words were slightly muffled by the plastic bags hanging from its teeth, but it had, in fact, made words with its mouth.  
Naruto didn't quite know how to respond to that. His young brain couldn't process the situation he had found himself in.

"Chi? I can hear you out there. Bring me the vegetables so I can finish the soup!" A voice called from inside the house, "And tell that kid to help you! I don't need you drooling all over the bok choy again..."

Naruto looked between the ferret and the house. He distantly remembered a lesson from his earlier days in the orphanage. Something about strangers and their houses. And candy. He hoped this person had candy. The ferret winked at him and offered the bags to Naruto. He took the bags from the ferret's mouth. They were slimy. Naruto grimaced as he wiped his hand on his pants.

"Gah," the ferret smacked its thin little lips a few times before looking to Naruto, "Thanks, kid. That stuff tastes awful." Then he bounded inside. Naruto followed.

The ferret flipped the light on with his tail as they he went. The inside of the house was sparse. Ridiculously sparse. As in no chairs, couches, tables, pictures, or shelves. Just an empty room with a tatami mat floor. The ferret didn't seem bothered by that. It just kept walking towards the back of the house. When it noticed that Naruto had stopped, the ferret waved Naruto forward with one of its paws.

"C'mon, Maru doesn't like to wait when she's hungry."

The ferret brought him back to another dark area of the house and flipped the lights on again. Naruto jumped a bit when he realized that a person had been standing there. In the dark. Like a weirdo. Naruto, as usual, felt the need to voice his opinion.

"Gah! What are you doing standing in the dark like a weirdo?!" He may have been too loud, but he hadn't cared about volume since the day he was born.

"Cooking," the person replied. The stove, refrigerator, and various cabinets did indeed indicate that he was standing in a kitchen. And the smell coming from the aforementioned stove did seem to imply that food was being prepared. However, Naruto was not one for "imply"s or "indicate"s. He was a man (boy) of action (yelling at strangers).

"Who the hell cooks in the dark?" Naruto yelled, feeling proud of his deduction skills (though what he thought he was deducing, not even he knew).

"Someone who's blind," the person replied, turning around to draw his attention to the piece of white cloth tied over her eyes.

That, amazingly, shut Naruto up. For a few seconds, anyway. Long enough for the woman to turn back to the stove.

"W-what is a blind person doing cooking over a stove?! You could burn your house down!" Naruto rushed forward to turn the stove off.  
He stopped, however, when the handle of a wooden spoon smacked down on the back of his hand.

"Ow! Hey!" He looked up at the woman accusatorily, "What the hell, lady!"

"Get out of my workspace," she replied, shoving him back with the back of her leg. Naruto stubbornly resisted.

"You're gonna burn yourself!" He tried to stretch his arm as far as he could, futilely reaching for the knob of the stove. The woman kept him at bay with her leg as she continued to stir the soup.

"Chi, get him off of me, please," she replied evenly.

Chi (the ferret who had been chuckling in the background as he watched them) stepped forward and wrapped his tail around Naruto.

"C'mere, kid," he said, still laughing, "S'best not to annoy Maru-chan too much. She might do worse than smack you with a spoon."

"But-"

"Trust me, kid. She's got it handled. You know how to chop vegetables?"

Naruto shook his head.

"Well, now's a good time to learn!" he used his tail to gently move Naruto towards the counter farthest from "Maru-chan". Chi swung the groceries up onto the counter and had Naruto pull them out. Using his tail, he helped Naruto carefully (read: messily) cut the necessary items. When they were done, Maru came over and picked the vegetables up. She ran her fingers over the pile of green onions that Naruto had jabbed into submission.

"Wow, kid. You didn't just dice, you murdered," she said, almsot amused.

Naruto bristled, "Hey! I've never done this before! Anyway, my name's not kid, it's Naruto! Uzumaki Naruto!"

Maru paused at this, "Uzumaki?"

"Yeah! And I'm gonna be the next Hokage, y'know!"

"Hm, really?" Maru asked idly, not really sounding convinced.

Naruto bristled. He knew when he was getting brushed off! And he would never accept it.

"I will! Then even weirdos like you will learn to respect me, y'know!" he shouted, pointing at her with gusto.

"Oh, is that how being a Hokage works? Earn the title, _then_ be respected? Funny I always thought it was the other way around," Maru said, her voice dripping with saccarine sarcasm.

Naruto recoiled from her words, his usual replies to the skepticism of others flying out of his mind.

"I...uh."

Chi chose this time to intervene, "Let's just eat, right? I'm starved!"

Maru's only reply was to pick the pot up off of the stove and move it to the table in the corner of the room.

Maru ladled the soup into a bowl and handed it to Naruto. He eyed the soup suspiciously.

"How do I know it's not poisoned?" he asked, turning his suspicious gaze onto her.

"You've been here for thirty minutes and it's only occurred to you to be suspicious _now_?" Maru replied as she spooned out another bowl and set it in front of Chi (who, wisely, just ignored them and dug into his food).

Naruto struggled to come up with an answer as Maru filled the final bowl for herself. Eventually, he just settled on muttering a sullen "whatever" into his bowl. He picked up a spoon, dug in, and-

"Hey, this isn't bad!" Naruto yell-complimented as he slurped down his soup.

"For poison, you mean?" Maru asked, sipping on her own meal.

Naruto paused and looked face was impassive as she continued to eat.

"Heh," his laughter was of the nervous variety, "That's a funny joke, lady. Heh heh...heh."

Maru's face gave nothing away.

"Y-you are joking, right?"

She didn't deign a reply.

It was Chi who gave it away. He snorted into his bowl of soup, splashing it all over the place.

"Ugh, really, Chi. It wasn't so funny that you needed to make a mess." Maru replied, handing him a paper napkin.

Naruto stared at the laughing ferret.

"Is he okay?"

"It's an inside joke."

"Really? Tell me!"

"No. Eat your food."

They lapsed into silence again. Well, sort of. Chi was coughing now because soup had gone down the wrong tube. Other than that, though, silence.

"Didn't your parents teach you about strangers?" Maru asked.

Naruto startled at the sudden breaking of the silence, but quickly allowed his eyes to settle onto his now-empty bowl.

"Don't have any."

"Ah. Do you live at the orphanage, then? Or are other people taking care of you?" He didn't hear any judgment in her voice, but he still felt insulted.

"Why do you care?" he grumbled, dropping his spoon on the table with more force than necessary.

"So Chi knows where to drop you off when you're finished eating," she replied before slurping the last of her soup down, "Do you want seconds or are you ready to go home?"

 _'It's not home,'_ Naruto thought.

Out loud he yelled "Seconds!" with a forced grin on his face.

* * *

An entire pot of soup later, Naruto was feeling stuffed and sleepy. He leaned his head on the surface of Maru's table, eyes drooping. He was vaguely aware of Maru and Chi talking.

"Wow, he polished off the whole thing," Chi said, sounding impressed.

"Don't be too surprised," Maru replied.

"Heh, I suppose you're right," Chi stood from his sitting position and stretched, "Ahhhh...Well, I'd better get the kid home before the orphanage people call in the ANBU."

"Have fun," she rose from the table to collect the dishes.

"Unless...you want to take him," Chi said hesitantly.

The clanking of dishes paused.

"No thank you."

"Maru..."

"I said no." It was, perhaps, a bit more forceful than was intended because Naruto jolted up from the table.

"Wah! I wasn't asleep!" he looked around with bleary eyes.

Maru turned her back to him and said, "Chi will take you back home."

"Woah, really?" Naruto asked, his eyes lighting up, "Oh man wait until the other kids see me coming home with a giant ferret!"

"I'll do you one better," Chi replied, sidling up to Naruto, "Hop on."

"Seriously?!" Naruto gleefully jumped onto Chi's back. The ferret wasted no time bounding out the door.

Leaving Maru-chan alone to clean up their mess.

* * *

A/N: Well, I'm tired now. But here, have a shiny new chapter to read. Lots of baggage to be had. Baggage makes everyone upset. It's heavy. It sits there being useless. It gets stuck on the escalator...I'm losing track of my metaphor, but yeah. Baggage. No fun. But fixable! Slowly, though. Slowly.

 **Edited: 1/8/19**


	3. Chapter 2: Naruto Fails

~Chapter 2: In Which Naruto Fails and Maru Can't Stand it~

* * *

"Well, here we are," Chi said cheerfully as he stopped in front of the orphanage.

Naruto looked at the building, and then down at the sable fur clutched in his hands. He had been enjoying the ride so much, he'd forgotten where he was going. Back to the place where he lived. He would never think of it as home. Home was warm and inviting. Home was where families were. Where people were happy.

The orphanage didn't make him happy. He didn't have any family there (or anywhere, as far as he knew). The attic where he was usually sent to sleep as punishment when he did something really bad certainly wasn't warm. And it most certainly was not inviting.

"What's up, kid?" Chi asked, looking back at him. The look on his face was one of genuine concern. At least, that's what it looked like to Naruto. He'd never really seen concern for him on anyone's face, let alone a ferret's. In fact, could they even show concern?

"I just..." Naruto didn't want to really tell Chi the truth. It made him look like a whiner. Every orphan in the village probably didn't like living in the orphanage. It was a sign of what they didn't have. But Naruto somehow felt more justified in his misery. Wasn't that wrong? Wasn't he supposed to be grateful for the roof over his head?

So, he did what he usually did when he wanted to divert attention from his real feelings: he gave a big dumb grin and deflected his little heart out.

"It's fine!" He said, maybe a little too loudly (it wasn't like he had any volume control anyway) "I just had so much fun, I didn't want today to end!"

Chi laughed and sat down on the ground, "Dinner with Maru-chan was fun? You sure are a weird one."

Naruto got (fell) off of Chi's back. He stood in front of the amiable weasel.

"Hey, it was free food!" Naruto grinned.

"Hah! A kid after my own heart," Chi chuckled as he stood back up. Naruto knew that he was small, he was a little kid, but next to Chi he felt even smaller. He was as long as the fence around the orphanage was tall. His shoulders passed just above the spikes of hair that topped Naruto's hair. His back was at least another six inches higher.

"You're really big," Naruto commented dumbly.

"I'll take that as a compliment!" Chi replied, "Now off you go. I don't want Maru-chan missing me too much."

"Okay..." Naruto tried to hide his disappointment by turning away from Chi. The day had been a happy one, no sense ruining it by bringing anyone else down. As he got closer to the gates, though, Chi called out to him.

"Hey, you wanna help me with groceries again tomorrow?"

Naruto grinned and shouted, "Hell yeah!"

He ran back over to Chi and threw his arms around his neck. Then he ran straight through the gates and into the orphanage...

...and right into the waiting arms of Mana Mi, demon headmistress of Konoha's orphanage.

* * *

Pots. Naruto hated scrubbing pots. Unfortunately, Mi-obachan had decided the scrubbing of pots would be his punishment for "worrying everyone". Yeah, like they had actually been worried. She was probably just mad that she could have gotten in trouble with Jiji.

Naruto scrubbed a particularly stubborn spot on the bottom of his fourth pot. Had they burned the food just to spite him? Ah, who was he kidding, the food was always burned. The cook was terrible.

"When you're done with those, Mi-san wants you to do those dishes as well," the kitchen attendant told him, pointing at a stack of dishes to his left.

"Whatever, I'm not that hag's slave," Naruto grumbled.

This was, apparently, a very wrong thing to say.

"How dare you!" the attendant said, grabbing his arm, "Mi-san breaks her back taking care of ungrateful brats like you!"

Naruto struggled against the attendant's grip, "Let go!" But her grip only tightened.

"Her kindness is more than a monster like you deserves! Especially after what you did to-!"

"I said let _go_!" Naruto shouted, shoving the crazy person away. They slammed back into the counter, knocking a stack of dirty bowls over. There was a loud smash as they fell to the ground and broke. The attendant stared at Naruto with wide eyes.

Naruto took advantage of the attendants shock and made a break for the exit. He ran through the hallways, past other, happier children and grumbling employees. They shouted at him to "slow down" and "be careful" lest he break something, but Naruto didn't care. He just wanted to get away.

So he ran through the streets of Konoha, bumping into passers by, (who were always happy to scold him for doing anything wrong) but not caring in the slightest. He passed through the marketplace where he had met Chi the day before. He passed through the outer housing districts, where he had spent an evening eating "poisoned" soup with a grumpy stranger. And he kept running still, everything scrolling past him in a teary blur. He never wanted to stop running.

Unfortunately, a very well placed tree had other plans. He slammed into it full force, his face taking the brunt of the attack. With a cry, he tipped backward and, unable to catch himself, fell flat on his back. For a few moments, he sat there in stunned silence. He could feel something leaking running down his upper lip. He brought a couple fingers up to his nose. They came away red.

That was fine, he thought. It wasn't like he'd never seen blood before. Nothing to cry about...Yet he could feel the tears leaking from his eyes, sobs coming from his own mouth.

Maybe it was the pain. Maybe it was the scare the kitchen attendant had given him. Maybe it was the stress from being lost (which he most certainly was). Or maybe it was just everything. The treatment by the village, the lack of empathy from the people who were supposed to be raising him, and any other reasons his saddened mind could conjure up. Thinking about it just made him want to cry harder. So that's just what he did.

For how long he sat there bawling, Naruto didn't know. By the time his loud, snot-infused cries had dulled to quiet sniffly whimpers, the sun hung high overhead. It must have been sometime around noon. Noontime meant lunch. Lunch meant food. Sweet, delicious food. His stomach growled.

Naruto pushed himself up from the ground and shook the dirt from his hair. If he was lucky maybe he could get the old guy, Teuchi, who ran Ichiraku's to give him a free bowl of ramen or two. It was either that or go back to the orphanage for lunch, but there was no way in _hell_ he was going to do that. Mi-obachan, the old hag, would be on the warpath and there was no telling what kind of terrible punishment should would dream up. Whatever it was, it would be much worse than doing the dishes.

Either way, he'd have to find out where he was before he could even think about where he was going to go.

Trees. A lot of trees. So he wasn't in the city. Well, that was juuuust peachy.

"Gah, where the hell am I!" Naruto yelled, mussing up his hair. The only thing it accomplished was scaring away some birds.

Naruto huffed and decided to just pick a direction and start walking.

* * *

There was a bounce in Chi's step as he made his way to the orphanage. After all, it wasn't every day he had company while he ran errands. Besides, Naruto was a pretty cheerful kid. A breath of fresh air compared to Maru-chan.

He cut off his train of thought. Today he was going to have some fun. No need to bring down his good mood with unhappy thoughts about unhappy people.

With one final bounce, Chi stopped in front of the orphanage and looked around. He had expected Naruto to be waiting outside, but he wasn't. Come to think of it, they had never set a time to meet. He probably thought that Chi went shopping later in the day, which wasn't the case. Yesterday had been a bit of a fluke. Maru had needed him to run a few more errands than normal, so he didn't get done until late in the day. Today certainly wouldn't be as bad.

Chi strolled up to the gates and called to the adult watching the children playing in the yard.

"Excuse me, miss?"

The lady jumped when she saw him.

"Y-yes?" she asked, carefully placing herself between him and the children. Chi laughed internally at her reaction.

"I'm looking for a little boy named Naruto Uzumaki."

The suddenness and severity of her frown made Chi flinch a little.

"Oh, _him_. He ran off earlier today," she spat, "After he assaulted one of our personnel. Honestly, I don't know why Mi-san puts up with him."

Chi frowned a little bit, "But, isn't it your job to look after the kids?"

"Not to look after him," the woman said. Then she turned away, clearly finding the conversation too disgusting to continue.

Chi's frown deepened. Well, that was troubling. He knew who Naruto was, of course, and why that might put people off. He had hoped, however, that the people who had been watching him would at least do what they were being _paid_ to do and keep Naruto safe.

 _'Come to think of it,'_ Chi thought, _'He had been running around the marketplace unsupervised yesterday. They really_ don't _care about him do they?'_

That thought brought up a tidal wave of indignation. Treating a kid terribly just because of something he had no control over. Ridiculous.

Well, he'd just have to go find Naruto and console him. Maybe buy him some lunch to make up for the mistreatment.

* * *

Naruto passed yet another tree. Had he seen that one before? He rubbed the back of his head in frustration.

"This whole damn place looks the same!" He grumbled as he plodded along.

Thankfully his nose had stopped bleeding, but it still hurt a little. Not to mention it was hot. His shirt was pasted to his back by sweat and Naruto seriously considered just ripping it off. But then when he got back to the village people would probably yell at him for being "improperly dressed". If he ever got to the village, that is. He was seriously beginning to doubt his navigation abilities.

It appeared that the powers that be felt he hadn't been punished enough, however. Naruto tripped. He sprawled out across the dirt, thankfully _not_ smacking his nose this time. It still wasn't a particularly pleasant experience. In fact, it was just unpleasant enough to bring Naruto's ire to a boil.

"Darn it!" Naruto shouted, whipping around in search of whatever he had tripped over. He had half a mind to kick it into submission (not that that was a good plan, but he was an angry six-year-old, the least rational form of human being).

The offending object, he discovered, was the handle of a kunai. It must have been there for a long time because the bandages that had been wrapped around the handle were so tattered that they were nearly falling off. Naruto grabbed it and gave it a sharp tug. The kunai did not budge. He grabbed the handle with two hands and tugged again. Nothing. With a frustrated growl, Naruto braced his legs on either side of the knife and gave it the strongest pull he could.

This seemed to do the trick. The kunai came loose, showering Naruto in dirt. He tipped backward but managed to shift his feet in time to catch himself.

It was pretty beat up from its time in the dirt, but it didn't seem too damaged. Maybe not very sharp but he wasn't picky. Naruto decided to take it with him. Who knew what kind of creatures lived in this place...

As if hearing his thoughts, a bush ahead of him began to rustle. Naruto's heart jumped in his chest. He held the kunai tightly in his hands. If there was a creature in there that was going to eat him, he would kill it with the kunai. Yes...He could definitely do that.

Something long and brown wiggled out of the bushes.

 _'Snake!'_ Naruto thought. He threw the kunai at the creature, but it flew wide. The kunai made a light thump as it bounced sideways off of a tree trunk a good three feet away from the "snake".

Naruto cursed his terrible aim and considered running over to retrieve his weapon. But that would mean going near the snake. Without a weapon, however, he would not have any way to defend himself with against a vicious animal.

It soon became clear that he need not worry, however, when Chi stumbled backward out of the bush. As it turns out, the "snake" Naruto thought he had seen was really Chi's tail.

"Chi?" Naruto asked, trying to stave off his embarrassment at having made such a ridiculous mistake.

"Hey, kid!" Chi said cheerily as he shook some leaves from his fur, "Did I hear something fall?"

Naruto found that he couldn't meet Chi's glittering little eyes.

Chi looked around. Finally, his eyes landed on the kunai on the ground. He looked to Naruto, then back at the kunai. Then back to Naruto again. The boy was blushing bright red and rubbing the back of his neck.

"Did you throw a kunai at me?" Chi asked, small ears pricked in curiosity.

"N-no..." Naruto still couldn't bring himself to meet Chi's gaze. Instead, he stared at the tips of his toes.

"Oh my gosh, you did!" Chi laughed.

"Sh-shut up!"

"Oh, that is hilarious!" Chi said, laughing even harder.

"I thought your tail was a snake!" Naruto shouted crossing his arms over his chest.

"What kind of snake has _fur_ on it?" Chi chuckled.

"I-I don't know! I've never been out here before," Naruto mumbled, kicking at the dirt.

Chi laughed for a few more seconds before he finally composed himself.

"Hoo, that was one bad throw, kiddo," he sighed as he padded up to Naruto (who was still pouting).

"Yeah, well, I'd like to see you do better!" Naruto retorted petulantly.

"I can," Chi returned and he moved over to the wayward kunai.

Naruto watched as chi picked up the kunai in one paw. He leaned back on his haunches, balancing the kunai carefully. With a smooth flick of his wrist (do ferrets even have wrists?), he let the knife fly. It landed with a loud thunk in the tree just opposite him.

The amazement Naruto felt at watching a ferret throw a kunai outweighed his indignation at being outclassed by an animal.

"Whoa! Could you teach me?" Naruto begged, his eyes shining in admiration.

"Heh, sure," Chi said as he pulled the kunai from the tree, "After groceries."

"Aw, but that's no fun!" Naruto groaned, puffing out his cheeks in indignation.

"Hey, you promised! Besides, I'm sure Maru-chan will make us lunch if we make good time," Chi handed Naruto the kunai he'd pulled from the tree, "Here, I promise on this kunai that I will train you after lunch."

Naruto grinned and accepted the promise.

* * *

"So how did you find me?" Naruto asked as Chi bounded from tree to tree. It felt so nice to be able to stretch his legs again.

"How do you think?" Chi replied turning back to wiggle his pink nose at him.

"Oh! You can do that?"

"Yeah. My nose is just as powerful as any ninken's" Chi said with unmasked pride.

"Really?!" Naruto questioned in unabashed awe, then he asked, "What's a ninken?"

"Well, the truth is in the name: it's a dog that's a ninja," Chi replied.

"Dog ninjas? That's awesome!" There was a pause, and then "Wait, does that mean you could be a ninja?"

"Not only _can_ I be a ninja, but I _was_ a ninja! I'm retired now," Chi replied, "Hey, look, civilization!" He hopped down out of the trees onto a large dirt road with small buildings flanking it.

"Why did you retire?" Naruto asked.

"Because Maru-chan retired," Chi answered. He could see where this line of questioning was going and he didn't like it, but honesty is the best policy...

"Why did _she_ retire?"

Ah, there it was. He knew he'd get in trouble for telling the kid, so he decided to give a vague answer.

"Ninja life wasn't suiting her all that well."

"Why?"

Chi sighed. Leave it to a kid to ask the wrong questions.

"Look Naruto, it's not really an answer for me to give. Maru-chan's a _really_ private lady. She wouldn't appreciate me talking about her behind her back." Hopefully, the kid would take the hint.

"Ugh, she's so boring," Naruto whined, burying his face in Chi's fur.

"I can see why a kid your age would say that," Chi chuckled, "But really, she's a good person. She's just...always thinking about sad things."

"Why?"

Chi let his answer roll around in his head before he let it fall out of his mouth. Maru's psyche was a bit hard to put into words, especially words that a kid Naruto's age would understand.

"Well, it's...how she is," he hated how simple it sounded, but it would have to do for now.

"But doesn't that make her unhappy?"

"Sometimes," Chi replied.

"So why does she do it so much?"

"She can't help it, sometimes," Chi sighed, "It's like...It's like having a really nasty mosquito bite: you know scratching it will make it worse, but you just feel such a need to scratch that you end up doing it anyway."

"...That sucks," Naruto mumbled into Chi's fur.

"Yeah, it does."

* * *

They finished getting the groceries shortly before 1:30 and were at Maru's house in another fifteen.

"Just set those on the table. Maru hates it if she can't organize the fridge herself," Chi instructed as he closed the door behind him, "And take your shoes off!"

Naruto pushed off his sandals and tossed them over towards the door. Chi had to nudge them up against the wall so that they weren't in the middle of the doorway.

"Hey, Maru-chan, food," Chi said.

Maru was sitting in the middle of the empty living room, legs crossed, breathing even. Normally, Chi wouldn't interrupt her while she was meditating, but Naruto was hungry. So was he, for that matter. Yet Maru was not, thus she did not move from where she was sitting.

"C'mon Maru-chan! Naruto's here and we're both hungry!"

Maru didn't budge.

"Fine, I'll just use the stove, then," Chi knew it was a bit of a gamble. He would never actually try to use the stove by himself after what happened the last time, but maybe the threat would be enough to motive Maru to get off her butt and be helpful.

Just when it seemed like it wouldn't work, Naruto decided to join in.

"Yeah! We'll just make the food ourselves!"

Maru let out a heavy sigh and stood from the floor.

"No you won't," she stated.

She walked into the kitchen and pushed Naruto away from the stove.

"Hey! I want to help!" he groused, crossing his arms.

Maru dug around in a drawer and pulled out a pair of scissors, "Open the package of noodles."

Naruto happily grabbed the scissors and began stabbing at the plastic wrapped around the noodles. He eventually managed to make a hole in the bag, spilling a few dried noodles onto the floor. Then he proudly presented the package to Maru. She took it from him without a word.

There was a pot of water on the stove, slowly working up to a boil.

"Soup again?" Naruto whined, looking up at Maru.

"Yesterday we had Butajiru. Today we're having Udon," Maru replied like that would alleviate Naruto's grievances.

"But that's still soup!"

"Yes, your observation skills are admirable."

Naruto crossed his arms and pouted, "Ugh, you're so boring!"

"It's a good thing I'm not here to please you, then."

A tense silence passed between the two as small bubbles began to form at the bottom of the pot. Chi, feeling intensely uncomfortable, decided to try to break the quiet.

"So...Uh...Naruto managed to get lost today."

"Hey, it wasn't my fault!" Naruto loudly protested, "I just, got really mad after that mean kitchen lady yelled at me!"

"Kitchen lady?" Chi asked.

"Yeah. After I came home late yesterday, Mi-obachan made me do the dishes. One of the ladies in the kitchen yelled at me when I called Mi-obachan a hag," Naruto mumbled, looking down at his bare feet.

"Why did you call her a hag?" Maru asked as she dumped some instant dashi into the now-boiling water.

"Because she deserved it!" He yelled, turning back to Maru, "She's always being mean to me! Telling me I'm a pain, calling me a brat! I hate her..." He said the last part so quietly that ears weaker than Maru's and Chi's wouldn't have been able to hear him.

"Hm," Chi mumbled just as quietly as she dumped the udon noodles into the boiling broth, "Would you kill her?"

"Maru!" Chi yelled, scandalized.

"No!" Naruto also yelled.

"Then you don't hate her. You hate the way she treats you," Maru said simply. She turned to Naruto, "How do you go about changing that?"

Chi could practically see the gears turning in Naruto's head as he searched for a response.

"Come on, Maru, that's not a fair question," he scolded. Honestly, sometimes she was just so...Maru.

"There isn't anything I can do," Naruto mumbled, "she hates me. I don't know why but she hates me. Everyone does. They just look at me and...Their eyes are just so mean."

Maru stirred the soup, tapped the spoon twice on the edge, then placed it on the counter next to the stove, "It saddens me to hear that the village is so small minded."

"Huh?" Naruto questioned, looking up at the beanpole of a woman.

"To dislike someone because of something they cannot control is just," she sighed, dropping her arms to her sides, "it's just unfair."

Before Naruto could comment, Maru walked away from him. She grabbed a cluster of green onions from the shopping bags and began to chop them up.

"Can I help?" Naruto asked.

"Stir the soup," she instructed, still chopping.

* * *

Once the food was made, eaten, and cleaned up, Chi brought Naruto out into the backyard. It was a simple space, mostly sand and grass, with a wooden porch spanning the length of the house's back. There were three big rocks sitting in the middle of the sandy part, each one had swirls going around it. The grassy part was mostly plain, the only break really being some gray paving stones leading to a shed. Next to the shed were some targets and a straw dummy for practicing with weapons.

"Oh, cool!" Naruto exclaimed, fixing to jump off the porch and into the sand. Unfortunately for him, Chi grabbed him by the back of his shirt, so he just ended up making a strangled cry before falling backward.

"No stepping on the zen garden! Use the stairs," Chi scolded, directing him to the stairs at the end of the porch.

Naruto grumbled a bit about rules being stupid but obliged. He bounded down the stairs, towards the targets. Chi followed.

"Okay, stay right there. I'll go get some kunai and shuriken," Chi said as he disappeared into the shed.

* * *

They spent at least two hours working on Naruto's aim and well...

Well, Naruto wasn't very good at it, to be frank.

It wasn't that the kid wasn't trying. On the contrary, he was one of the most resilient people Chi had ever worked with. Every time a kunai went awry or a shuriken flew over the fence, the kid just kept going. He'd brag about how next time would _definitely_ be the one where he hit the target.

But he never did. And while Naruto refused to let his training spirit wane, Chi's certainly was.

 _'Is it my fault? Am I doing something wrong?'_ he thought, tendrils of anxiousness slowly forming in his mind.

Chi had never really taught anyone before. It had always been Maru who did the teaching and he would be the training dummy...Which might have been why he had so much trouble. Admitting that to Naruto, however, seemed to be a problem.

He was just so forward with his admiration. Whenever he looked up at Chi with those big happy eyes and asked "what next?" it was like someone was taking his heart in their arms and giving it a great big hug. This was also hurting Naruto's progress, though, and that felt like he was hugging his own heart so tight that it was going to explode at any second.

His heart-based thoughts were interrupted by the back door sliding open. Chi looked over to see Maru step out onto the porch, a steaming cup of tea in her hand. She jumped from the edge of the porch to one of the rocks in the zen garden. Then she sat down cross-legged on top of it.

 _'Geez Maru-chan, way to put more pressure on me,'_ Chi grumbled internally.

He pried his gaze away from Maru. He'd be damned if he'd let her cow him into failing this.

"Argh, I don't get it!" Naruto shouted, "I swear I did what you said, but it just doesn't come out right. What am I doing wrong?"

 _'But he's clearly not,'_ Chi mused, _'otherwise it would be flying straight. Maybe if I have him do it again, I'll catch whatever mistake he's making.'_

"Try it again and-" Chi was cut off by a shout from Naruto.

"Whoa, lady, when'd you get there?!"

Apparently, Maru had been bothered enough by Chi and Naruto's mutual failure to alight from her sparkly pedestal up in heaven to help the little peons.

"About ten seconds ago," Maru replied. She set her tea on the windowsill of the shed, "Pick up a kunai and hold it like you're ready to throw it."

"Wha?" Naruto asked, looking pretty dazed from her sudden change in heart.

"Pick up a kunai. Hold it like you're about to throw it," Maru said it much more slowly this time, which seemed to irk Naruto.

"I know! You don't need to say it like I'm stupid."

Thankfully, Maru didn't reply to that.

Naruto picked up a kunai from the pile that they'd slowly been whittling down throughout the day.

"Okay," Maru began once Naruto had a kunai at the ready, "I'm going to touch your hand to see if it's in the correct position. Please don't freak out."

She did just as she was going to say, running her fingers over Naruto's hand. She moved his fingers around a bit and then closed her whole hand around the handle.

"Okay, now, I'm going to show you the proper motions," she brought Naruto's arm out to the side and back, "You need the proper amount of power behind your throw: too much and you'll overshoot, too little and you'll undershoot. Having your arm back like this helps with that, but you also have to be careful about cutting yourself. That's why you keep your elbow in like this." Maru let go of his arm. "Okay. Throw it."

Naruto did as he was told. The kunai didn't land in the target, but it did bounce off the side. That was more than he and Chi had managed in two hours.

"I hit it!" Naruto cheered.

"But you didn't land it," Maru reminded him, "It's important to acknowledge failures as well as victories. Now, I think you moved your thumb at the last second and that's why..."

The lesson went on like that until the sun began to sink below the walls of the village. By then, Naruto was reliably hitting the target, though he was still a far cry from making consistent bulls-eyes (which is what he had really been hoping for).

"Alright. Time to call it quits for today," Maru said, standing from her position in the grass behind Naruto. She had long since ceased needing to guide him by hand.

"Aw, but I've almost got it!" Naruto whined. He gave her his best pouty face, not really realizing that it was useless against a blind woman.

"You and Chi clean up, I'll get dinner started," Maru told them. Chi knew better to argue. Naruto on the other hand...

"Just a few more minutes!" Naruto begged, grasping Maru's bandage-covered arm.

Maru shook him off, "If you clean up now, I'll agree to teach you tomorrow."

That seemed to be the motivation Naruto needed because the yard was spotless before Maru had even finished making dinner.

* * *

Naruto devoured his meal with the kind of gusto only a starving young boy could. Soon afterward he fell sound asleep at the kitchen table.

"He's a pretty cute kid," Chi whispered, careful not to wake the child.

"I'll take your word for it," Maru mumbled into her fresh cup of tea.

"He looks a lot like Minato when he was a kid," Chi knew he was entering dangerous territory by bringing up the past, but he just had this feeling.

"Too bad he got Kushina's skill with a kunai," Maru sighed.

Chi made a sound akin to laughter, "Yeah, too bad."

They lapsed into a comfortable silence, interrupted only by Naruto's loud snores.

"He shouldn't sleep on the table," Maru murmured once she had finished her tea, "We still have a spare futon, right?"

Chi didn't need any more of a hint to go and get it. He set it up in the empty living room and Maru carried Naruto over to it. Chi pulled the covers back and Maru set him onto it gently. Chi placed the covers over him. Maru removed the bulky green goggles from Naruto's forehead. Her hand lingered in his hair.

"It feels like Minato's," she noted, before quickly removing her hand and rushing down the hall.

* * *

A/N: This chapter turned out waaaaaay longer than I ever expected it to be! I'm kind of proud of myself!  
Anyway. Naruto's gotten himself a couple of new buddies! Or at least one buddy and one reluctant sensei. Also -le gasp- Maru knew Minato and Kushina! How interesting...

 **Edited: 1/8/19**


	4. Chapter 3: The Scratched Mosquito Bite

~Chapter 3: The Scratched Mosquito Bite Gets the Disease~

* * *

"-ruto. Naruto. Hey, it's time to get up," someone was gently shaking his shoulder.

"Mmn," he grumbled burrowing his face into his pillow.

"Come on. You're going to be late for class," the shaking became more insistent.

"Dun wanna," he mumbled, pulling the covers over his head.

"Naruto," the person above him sighed. They let go of his shoulder.

Suddenly the covers were gone. Naruto groaned and curled into a ball.

"If you don't get up now, you don't get breakfast."

Naruto didn't move.

An annoyed sigh and then: "Fine. If that's how you want to play it."

Then there were arms looped underneath him and he was being carried.

"Ah! Hey!" Naruto struggled in the person's arms.

"I gave you a chance to get up the nice way and you didn't. This is your punishment."

Naruto twisted himself to look up at his assailant, "You're so mean, Maru-bachan!" As if to punctuate his displeasure, he kicked her a couple times. Maru just grunted and dropped him into one of the chairs at the kitchen table.

"Since when am I your aunt?" Maru asked, moving over to the stove to put food into bowls.

"You're not! You're an old lady!"

"Oba doesn't mean old, it means middle-aged," Maru placed a bowl of rice and some miso soup in front of him, "Which I'm not. Yet. Obā means old. If you're going to insult me, do it right."

"Same thing!" Naruto said as he stuck out his tongue.

Maru ignored him and muttered a quiet "itadakimasu" before digging in. Naruto remembered just enough of his manners to do the same.

"Morning!" Chi chirped as he padded into the room. Maru didn't respond. Naruto just grumbled into his soup.

"Boy, what chipper responses!" Chi exclaimed, sitting down at the table. Maru had already set out some food for him. He dug right in.

"Bullseye here didn't want to get up," Maru said, daintily sipping her soup as if she hadn't just insulted someone.

"She pulled my covers off and dragged me out of bed!" Naruto shouted, hoping that Chi would empathize with his mistreatment.

Chi, however, just laughed, "Yeah, that sounds about right."

Maru shrugged, "He was going to miss breakfast. He's going to miss class, too, if he doesn't hurry."

"Yeah, whatever," Naruto muttered through a mouthful of rice, "It's not like anyone'll miss me."

"Friends or no friends, if you fail the academy, you fail to become a ninja," Maru replied.

Naruto groaned but didn't argue. No doubt Maru would think of a counterpoint anyway.

"Aw, c'mon Naruto!" Chi broke in, "It won't be so bad. Besides, I can give you a ride."

That cheered Naruto up immediately, "Really?!"

"Yes, but you have to finish your breakfast so we can get going."

That was the only encouragement Naruto needed. He wolfed down his food. The speed of his consumption made him choke. Between coughs, he managed to thank Maru for the food. Then he grabbed on to Chi's fur and began dragging him to the door.

"Ouch! Slow it down there, kiddo! The academy isn't going anywhere," Chi exclaimed.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Maru asked resting her chin in her hand.

Naruto looked back at her, "Uh, no?"

Maru stood from the table with a sigh. She grabbed a couple things from the counter and walked over to him.

"Lunch. Goggles," she placed each object in his hands as she said it.

"You made me lunch?" Naruto looked up at her, not sure how to feel about the gesture.

"I doubt the people at the orphanage would have. It's probably why you're such a shrimp," he could have been mistaken, but Naruto could have sworn there was a smirk on her face.

"Hey!" Naruto shouted, "Wait. How can you even tell that I'm short?"

"Like this!" Maru leaned down and ruffled his hair.

"Grr, get off!" Naruto exclaimed, swatting her hands away.

"Heh, enough messing around," Maru said, "Get going you two."

"Yeah, Chi, let's go!" Naruto cheered as he grabbed the poor ferret by the fur once again.

"Ow ow ow ow. Okay! Okay. Just hop on," Chi said, beleaguered.

Naruto did as he was told and the two of them took off towards the academy.

* * *

Naruto felt so smug when he arrived at the academy. All of the other kids were staring at him in awe, no doubt impressed by his awesome new friend.

"Whoa, what is he riding on?"

"Is that a ninken?"

"No, stupid, ninken are dogs!"

Naruto soaked in the attention even as Chi skidded to a stop.

"Alright! This is where I leave you," Chi said, sitting down so that Naruto to get off more easily.

"You'll pick me up, too, right?" Naruto asked, holding onto Chi's fur.

"Of course, now get in there before you're late!"

Naruto threw his arms around Chi's neck, "Ok!" Then he ran into the building.

Most days class was dead boring. Really, it still was. However, today everyone was talking about him. And for once it wasn't about what a loser he was or how obnoxious he could be (of course the gossip wasn't about him so much as the ferret he road in on, but toe-may-toe toe-mah-toe). He couldn't wait until people came up to him to ask him about his cool new friend!

As the minutes passed and Iruka-sensei came in to get lessons started, no one tried to talk to Naruto. They kept the same distance as ever. Over the next few hours, he felt his ego deflate a bit.

By the time lunch came around, his attention high had dulled into an annoyed buzz at the back of his head. Didn't anyone want to ask him about the giant ferret he had ridden to school on? Apparently not. He had a sneaking suspicion as to why.

When Iruka-sensei released them to lunch, Naruto couldn't get out of the classroom fast enough. What was the point? It wasn't like anyone was going to try to talk to him about anything.

"U-um!" someone squeaked behind him.

Naruto turned to look back. Standing behind him was a girl with dark blue hair and pale lavender eyes. What was her name? Hina-something?

"Y-you f-f-forgot..." Hina-something was looking down at her shoes, digging at the floorboards with one foot. She held up a bundle of cloth.

It took Naruto's brain a little extra power to actually realize what the girl was implying.

"Oh! My lunch! I forgot I had this," he took the lunch from the blushing young lady, "Thanks a lot!" He gave her a big grin.

Hina-something looked up briefly, and then back down at her feet. Her face was so red, Naruto was afraid that she might faint.

"Hey, are you okay?" He asked, stepping closer to her.

She quickly took a step back, nodding frantically. Then she wheeled around on one foot and ran back into the classroom.

"That was weird," Naruto mumbled and then he looked down at his lunch and grinned.

He went out into the yard surrounding the academy. That's where all the other kids with lunches ate. Maybe he could sit with them and talk about...whatever it was they talked about. He never really got close enough to hear their conversations.

It didn't take much effort to find a group of kids eating lunch together. The problem turned out to be finding a group that would let him sit with them.

The first group was sitting up against the academy building, trying to throw tomatoes from one of their lunches into another kid's mouth. Most of them bounced off of his face and fell on the ground, but they looked like they were having a good time. Naruto strolled up to them.

"Hey, can I join you guys?" He tried to give him the brightest grin he could muster, showing all the good intent he possibly had.

The kids looked at each other warily, then at Naruto.

"Uhm."

"You see...Uh, we're having this...competition!" one of the kids said.

The other ones picked up on this and rushed to add to the other's excuse.

"Yeah! We're trying to see how many tomatoes each of us can catch!"

"If we added another person, we'd have to start all over again!"

"Yeah..."

There was a silence as Naruto pondered whether or not to argue. He wasn't stupid; he knew they were lying to him. But they were trying to let him down gently. Which is more than he could say for most people.

"Oh, okay," he realized how upset he sounded, so he forced some cheer into his voice, "S-sorry to bother you!"

Naruto rushed away from the group.

The second group wasn't much better. It was a group of girls sitting around and chatting. Whatever it was they were talking about, it made them giggle a lot. Unfortunately, one of them looked up just in time to see him approaching. She whispered something to the other girls. They all glanced at him. As one they stood and walked away.

The third group wasn't a group so much as two people. He recognized them from his class. They often spent a lot of time in detention alongside him. One for being lazy, the other for paying more attention to food than his lessons.

"Hey, Shikamaru, Chouji, can I eat with you guys?" He grinned at them and scratched his head nervously. If they didn't accept, maybe he'd just go back to sitting on his swing.

Shikamaru just glanced up at him and shrugged, not budging from his place sprawled out in the grass. Chouji swallowed whatever he was eating, nodded, and patted the grass beside him.

Naruto's grin went from nervous to happy as he sat down. He'd never done this before. Most people didn't try to talk to him. He also never had a lunch to bring. If he was feeling really hungry, he'd go down to Ichiraku's, but that usually meant missing half of afternoon class. Iruka-sensei always gave him detention for that. Then he'd have to stay at the academy even longer, and he didn't want that.

But it was different today. He had company and he had lunch. Speaking of which...

He undid the cloth that bound the bento box that Maru had put his food in. It wasn't as fancy as he thought it might be. He'd seen some kids with sandwiches cut into the shapes of cats and little hot dogs cut into tiny octopi. Maru's way of preparing a lunch was almost boringly simple. Three onigiri (the kind shaped like balls, not triangles like the packaged kind you could buy in the store). Some sort of chopped vegetable thing (wasn't it called salad?). And some apple slices (ugh, why did it have to be so healthy?).

Despite it having a large amount of stuff that was actually good for him, Naruto liked his lunch. He dug into it happily.

Chouji leaned over and surprised him by asking, "Whatchu got?"

"Uh," Naruto had to remind himself that someone was actually talking to him and that it was polite to reply, "Onigiri."

"Cool. My mom packed me Tonkatsu," He held up a slice of breaded pork, "Wanna try some?"

Naruto nodded and took a piece out of Chouji's bento.

Feeling the need to return the charity, Naruto offered one of his onigiri.

"Oh! Thanks," Chouji smiled happily at him.

They chewed each other's food in silence for a few minutes. Of course, Naruto couldn't stay quiet for very long.

"What did your mom pack you, Shikamaru?" he asked through a mouthful of apple.

Chouji held up another bento that had been sitting by his leg, "Yakisoba." Then, he picked up a noodle from the box slurped it into his mouth with one long pull.

"You're eating his lunch?" Naruto asked looking from Chouji to Shikamaru.

"Yeah, he'd rather watch the clouds," Chouji replied as he polished off the last of his own bento, "But if he comes home with a full bento, his mom gets mad at him. So he lets me eat it."

"Oh...Can I have some too?" Naruto asked, eyeing the food.

Choji nodded and put the bento between them.

* * *

After class ended, Chouji, Naruto, and Shikamaru settled into the grass outside to wait for their respective guardians.

"It looks like, a rabbit...holding a shuriken," Naruto said, staring up at the clouds.

"Mmm, I think it's more like a hamster with a really big knot on its head," Chouji replied, tilting his head in an attempt to get a better perspective.

"You guys are both so dense," Shikamaru interjected, "It's clearly a bean holding a flag."

"No way!" Naruto shouted, "It's a butt farting!"

He and Chouji giggled as any little boy would when saying something "dirty", while Shikamaru smirked begrudgingly.

A shadow fell over them.

"What's this I hear about butts?" It was Chi!

"Chi!" Naruto shot up from the ground and wrapped the poor ferret in a chokehold hug.

"Guh! It's nice...to...see you too, Naruto," Chi gurgled, "But could you...maybe give me...a little...air?

"Oh!" Naruto released him, "Sorry."

While Chi caught his breath, Naruto looked back at his friends. Shikamaru had an eyebrow raised, waiting expectantly for an answer. Chouji was staring at the giant weasel before him with wide eyes. Naruto felt the flame of smugness that had nearly been extinguished that morning roar back to life.

"Guys, this is Chi. He's a ninja ferret!" Naruto grinned proudly.

"Was," Chi coughed, "I was a ninja. I'm still a ferret, though."

"Whoa!" Chouji breathed, standing from the ground, "Can I pet you?"

"Uh, sure. Why not?" Chi said, leaning down to allow the small boy easier access to his head.

"Your fur is so soft!" Chouji exclaimed as he rubbed behind Chi's ear.

"Why thank you!" Chi grinned at Chouji, "A little lower. Left. Okay, right there! Ah."

Naruto joined in the petting. Chi dropped down onto his side in ecstasy.

"Hey, Shikamaru, come and pet him!" Chouji called.

Shikamaru didn't do that. Instead, he slowly circled around the ferret and the two six-year-olds lavishing attention upon him. How does one process seeing a giant animal, when one has never seen one?

"Chi?" A gruff voice spoke above them.

All four boys looked up to see who had spoken.

"Well if it isn't Shikaku Nara!" Chi beamed, pulling himself off of the ground, and taking Naruto and Choji with him. The two boys grunted as they let go of his fur and fell to the ground.

"I thought that was you," Shikaku said, a small smirk tugging at the edge of his mouth.

"Of course it's me! How many talking ferrets are there in Konoha?" Chi chuckled, shaking out his fur, "How've you been?"

"Oh, fine. Raising this one," Shikaku rested his hands on Shikamaru's shoulders. The boy gave him a bland look.

"Geez, he looks like a tiny version of you," Chi exclaimed.

"Really? I think he looks more like his mother."

"Not with that ponytail!" Chi chuckled.

The conversation was interrupted by a very bored Naruto groaning, "Ugh! Adults are so boring!"

"Rude! We're having a conversation, Naruto," Chi scolded, not that Naruto cared.

"I'd rather watch Maru-bachan cook," Naruto pouted, burying his face in Chi's fur.

"How is Maru?" Shikaku asked, ignoring the interruption.

"Oh, you know, she's Maru," Chi replied, looking back at the six-year-old clinging to his fur, "Kind of grumpy, kind of nice, and very reclusive."

"She's been teaching me how to throw kunai!" Naruto interjected, proudly.

"Has she, now?" Shikaku asked, stony-faced. Naruto felt the sudden urge to hide behind Chi, but thought better of it. This old man wasn't scary! Or, that's what he told himself, at least.

"She has," Chi responded before Naruto could interrupt again, "And Naruto is a very good student."

Naruto grinned at the adults, his ego happy at being stroked. Shikamaru snorted but did not deign an interjection.

"Wait...How do you know Maru-bachan?" Naruto asked, half hiding behind Chi.

"She and I worked together a lot during the war," Shikaku said, "That and she was married to my brother."

"Eh?!" Naruto crowed, staring at Shikaku with wide eyes, his earlier intimidation forgotten.

"It's been a while," Shikaku muttered, "Well, we'd better be going. Come on Shikamaru. Chouji, I'm taking you home today." Chouji nodded and followed behind the two Naras.

"Maru was married?!" Naruto shouted, this time at Chi.

"Yeah, he shouldn'tve told you that," Chi sighed, "C'mon, hop on."

Naruto climbed onto Chi's back, but he didn't want to let the subject go.

"Who'd want to marry her?" He grumbled.

"Hey, that's not very nice," Chi returned.

"Chi?" Shikaku called, just as the ferret was getting ready to take off.

"Yeah?" Chi shouted back.

"Tell Maru that our offer still stands."

Chi paused and stared at Shikaku. The ferret's face was the most serious he'd ever seen it.

"Thank you, Shikaku, I'll tell her."

Shikaku nodded and turned to walk away again.

* * *

Chi was quiet for the entire ride home. He felt kind of bad for leaving Naruto out to dry like this. He did deserve answers to his questions, after all. However, Maru's life was a bit of an advanced subject for a child so young. Things like this needed some time to digest. Quiet reflection didn't really seem to be Naruto's thing, at least not right now.

He wondered how Maru would take this. No doubt Naruto would ask her about this the next time he saw her. Chi briefly considered taking him to the orphanage to avoid the confrontation. But he soon realized that he'd just be placing Naruto into the middle of another confrontation; after all, he hadn't been back there in over a day. It wouldn't surprise him if he'd get another punishment-one even worse than doing dishes. Besides, there was a chance that Maru would actually get something out of talking to the six-year-old instead. Lord knows she wouldn't listen to Chi. They'd known each other far too long for her to listen to him.

But it couldn't hurt to try to lean Naruto's reaction into a more...diplomatic one.

"Hey, Naruto," Chi said, interrupting the stream of questions flowing from the boy's mouth.

"Huh?"

"When we get to the house, be careful how you ask Maru-chan about her past. She gets kind of...touchy when it's brought up," in reality 'touchy' wasn't quite the right word, but he couldn't think of a better one.

"Eh? Why?" he asked.

"Well...You know how I told you that Maru is kind of an unhappy person?"

"Yeah."

"Unhappy people usually don't like talking about the thing that makes them unhappy."

"Her husband makes her unhappy?"

"Not the person who was her husband, but what happened to him, yes," Chi knew what question was coming next.

"What happened to him?"

Chi sighed, he didn't want to be having this conversation. Maru should be telling him this.

"Look, Naruto. Stay on Maru-chan's good side and I promise you that your questions will be answered," it was the best answer that he could give and he prayed to the powers that be that the explanation would suffice.

Would that it could.

* * *

They arrived at the house just after the sun had disappeared over the city walls, casting shadows far across Konoha. The air was becoming cool, telling Chi that it would soon be autumn. He liked autumn. There were so many trees in Konoha and they all changed around the same time. For a few weeks, the entire village was golden. The air smelled of earth and was so wonderfully crisp. Nature's final hurrah before the emptiness of winter.

The idleness of his thoughts gave rise to a deep sadness. When was the last time he'd been able to think like that? Maru had been pretty much the only thing occupying his thoughts for the past...three years? Had it really been that long?

Chi let out a heavy sigh as he came to a stop in front of the door. He used his chakra to deactivate the seal that kept the door locked.

"Maru! We're home," He called into the house.

When he received no answer, he relied on his nose to locate her. She was out back raking the zen garden. Naruto hopped off of Chi's back and ran to the edge of the porch.

"You were married!" Naruto shouted.

Chi could have strangled the little idiot! What part of "unhappy people don't like talking about what makes them unhappy" didn't he understand?

Maru remained calm. Which didn't ease Chi's nerves at all.

"Oh? And who told you that?" She asked. Anyone else would have interpreted her tone as simply curious. Chi knew better.

"Shikamaru's dad!"

Maru was silent, most likely waiting for Chi to supply more of an answer.

"We ran into Shikaku Nara," at the name, Maru paused in her work ever-so-slightly. Only Chi would have been able to pick it up.

"And he told you that I was married," Maru replied. It wasn't a question, but it wasn't really an answer either.

"Yeah. To his brother," Naruto replied. He said it slowly and Chi wondered if maybe he was actually starting to catch onto Maru's reluctance to talk about this.

"Well, that is something," Maru said.

"Is it true?" He asked.

"Do you think it's true?"

"I don't know! That's why I'm asking you!"

"Hmm, that's too bad for you, then. I don't plan on answering."

Naruto growled in frustration and thrust an accusatory finger out at her, "What is with you! Why don't you want to talk about anything?"

"Oh, well," Maru sneered, hoisting the rake up onto her shoulders, "Maybe it's because it's none of your business. Maybe you're too young to understand. Maybe I just want to be angry and miserable alone."

Chi wanted to get in the middle of this, to stop both of these morons from saying something they'd regret, but he was frozen in place.

"Well, maybe you wouldn't be so miserable if you actually talked about your problems!"

"You know something about that, do you? A six-year-old? You don't know anything."

"W-well at least I know more than you! At least I tell people when I'm hurting! At-at least I have people to tell things to! You're so mean that you make other people sad and they have to run away."

Naruto's words hung in the air. Chi could tell that Maru was holding back something, though what that something was he couldn't tell.

"You know, that really is suprising," Maru said.

"Maru!" Chi cried, the comment having snapped him out of his funk. This was bad. He hadn't expected things to escalate like this.

There was a beat of silence before Naruto's eyes welled up with tears. Chi's heart went out to the kid. Here he thought he had friends who wouldn't judge him based on something he couldn't control. And then Maru had to open her big dumb mouth.

"I hate you!" He shouted, and took off into the house.

"Naruto!" Chi shouted, watching the boy run off, "Come on! She didn't mean it!"

But the boy wasn't listening. Chi turned back to Maru, ready to give her a piece of his mind. Unfortunately, she was already gone. Great, now he had two children to chase after.

He decided to find Naruto first. He wasn't very well acquainted with the area and was more likely to get lost. He also didn't have the advantage of over 25 years of shinobi training, like a certain asshole he knew.

* * *

After a lot of shouting and panicking, Chi found Naruto curled up in the dead end of an alleyway, using his shirt as a tissue.

When the shadow of the weasel fell over him, Naruto flinched and tried to press himself into the wall.

"Go away," he hiccuped.

"Naruto, I'm not here to yell at you," Chi said, planting himself in the middle of the alleyway. He didn't want to get too close, lest he spook the boy, but he also didn't want to let him run away before Chi apologized on behalf of his partner.

"Maru didn't mean any of what she just said," he explained quietly, "You just...hit a nerve."

"Sh-she said that it was surprising that I had anyone who cared about me!" Naruto sobbed, snot dripping out of his nose. He used his collar to wipe it off.

"Oh, Naruto," he sighed tiredly, "When people feel like they're cornered, they'll say anything to make themselves feel like they have control."

"L-like how I called her mean and told her she made people run away?" Naruto sniffed, finally meeting his eyes. They were swollen and red and Chi silently cursed himself for not stopping the fight.

"Yes, like that," Chi replied, stepping closer.

"I-I don't really think that..." Naruto sniffled, as he fiddled with the hem of his shirt.

"I know. I bet Maru knows, too," Chi sighed, stepping a little bit closer, "She just didn't know how to respond."

"She's like a little kid," Naru said. The thought seemed to amuse him a little bit. That was good. Amusement was good.

"All adults can be little kids, sometimes," Chi replied, fully closing the gap. He wrapped his body around Naruto. Thankfully the boy accepted the affection by nuzzling into Chi's fur.

"We all like to talk a big game, but we're all scared little kids on the inside. We've just learned how to hide it," Chi said.

Naruto looked up at him, "That's stupid. Why would they hide it?"

"It can be seen as a weakness, sometimes. And sometimes people will use that perceived weakness against us. Other times it just feels like a weakness, and we want to cover it up. Some people just hide it because they don't know what else to do. Or maybe it's a combination of all of that," Chi spoke quietly.

There was a stretch of silence and then:

"Well, I'm not gonna be like that."

Chi chuckled through his nose, "I hope not, kiddo. It's not a very fun way to be.

* * *

Chi arrived back home about a half hour later. He had had to drop Naruto off at the orphanage, much to the boy's chagrin. Chi had to promise a great many times that he would take Naruto to school again tomorrow and that he would pick him up again afterward. Now he had to deal with Maru.

Unfortunately, he didn't think it would turn out as well as it had with Naruto.

"Maru?" He called. She was definitely in the house. He could smell her scent trail. It was nice and fresh.

He followed the trail to the bathroom door. There was a slight scent of iron in the air, but it wasn't fresh anymore.

"Maru? Do you want anything to eat?"

No answer.

"Come on, Maru. I know you're in there. Please just come out and talk to me."

Silence.

"I'm not even mad anymore. I just want to talk.

He heard some shuffling behind the door, but it didn't open.

"Maru-" The door swung open suddenly, surprising Chi.

Maru stood before him, still as a statue.

"Maru?" Chi asked hesitantly.

"Did Naruto get home okay?" Her voice was quiet, so quiet that it sounded far away.

"Yeah. I'll be taking him to school tomorrow, too."

"There's some rice left over from the onigiri. You can put that and some vegetables with teriyaki sauce in his lunch tomorrow morning." And then she just walked away, towards her bedroom.

"Do...do you want to talk about what happened?" Chi asked, following her into her room.

It was a fairly sparse place. All it had was a bed, a bookshelf, and a map of the elemental countries hanging on the wall. It made Chi feel a bit depressed just looking at it. No wonder Maru was such a downer. Of course, she couldn't see, so maybe it just didn't matter.

Maru let out a heavy breath, "Not really."

Well, that wasn't helpful. Time for a change in strategy.

"Do you want to cuddle?"

Maru didn't move from the edge of her bed. It had been worth a shot, at least. Chi sighed and turned to leave the room. If Maru needed space, then she needed space. Forcing the issue would do no good for either of them.

Just as his front paw left the doorway, Maru called out to him.

"Yes! Yes, I want to cuddle."

Chi turned back and smiled at her. It had been ages since the last time they'd cuddled-not since she was a kid, really.

Chi hopped up on the bed and pushed his back against the wall. Maru climbed in next to him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his fur. Chi wrapped his front paws around her back and rested his head on top of her own.

"It's been ages since we last did this," he remarked, listening to her breathing.

"I haven't needed to do this in ages," she replied.

"Well, you have, but you never give into the urge to."

Her sigh ruffled his fur, "I'm sorry, Chi. I am so, so sorry."

"It's okay. I'm a tough ball of fur," he replied jokingly.

"That doesn't mean I shouldn't apologize. I know I haven't been the best person to be around for...for a while now."

Chi just let her continue speaking.

"I didn't mean it, you know. I just...Naruto is just so good at pushing all of my buttons. One minute I've got a clear idea of what I'm going to say, the next he's nudged me into an argument."

"Or into teaching how to throw kunai."

Maru exhaled through her nose in such a way that it might have been a laugh, "That too. He reminds me so much of his mother it hurts."

"Is that why you were so harsh?"

"Maybe?" she sighed, "I don't know anymore, Chi. I've been like this for so long...I don't think I'm even in control of my emotions anymore."

"Yelling at Naruto isn't going to help that."

Another sigh, "I know. I don't know why I even said that. He's obnoxious, sometimes, but that doesn't justify what I said to him. Everyone's a little obnoxious from time to time. _Especially_ little kids. I can't believe I said that it was surprising that he had people who cared about him."

"If it helps, he knows you didn't mean it," Chi supplied.

"It doesn't, but thanks anyway."

They lapsed into silence after that. Eventually, Chi fell asleep. In the back of his mind, he hoped Maru would, too.

* * *

A/N: Howdy y'all! Wasn't that a fun chapter! Naruto made some friends, ate lunch, got in a fight with his new friend, accidentally uncovered some severe emotional issues...It's just fantastic. I hope you enjoyed!

 **Edited: 1/8/19**


	5. Chapter 4: Adults Are Weird

~Chapter 4: Adults Are Weird~

* * *

Naruto had pretty much resigned himself to sleeping in the attic for the rest of his life. Mana Mi seemed to believe it was an appropriate punishment for his "delinquent behavior". To some degree, she was correct: it was something of a punishment. There were, after all, spiders. Naruto did not like spiders.

Other than that, it really wasn't that bad. It was a little drafty during the winter, sure, but he had blankets. It was a little lonely, but now he had people to hang out with at school (he hesitated to call them friends, they'd only eaten together the one time). He could wait until school.

Really the worst part about being locked up in the attic was that it allowed him to think. Anyone who knew Naruto knew that that was a very bad thing. It usually led to some of his most devious pranks. Or his strangest made up Jutsu. Or he got bored enough to sneak out and wreak some havoc.

But Naruto wasn't thinking about any of those things right now. All he could think about was the fight he'd had with Maru-bachan.

He'd never really gotten into a fight with a friend before. Was she even his friend? There were only two other people in his life to compare his relationship with Maru to. One being Iruka-sensei, who mostly just yelled at him and gave him free food. Not really a solid basis for a friendship. The other relationship was with Jiji who really only visited once a month. Unless, of course, he pulled a particularly vicious prank. In that case, the Hokage made an exception. His friendship with Shikamaru and Choji was too new for him to be able to tell where it would go. Come to think of it, so was his relationship with Maru. He'd met her, what, two days ago? Maybe three.

Be that as it may, he still felt terrible. His mouth often got him in trouble, but he'd never actually hurt anyone with his words before. Annoyed them, yes, but never hurt.

She had hurt him, too, of course. That wasn't a new feeling to Naruto. People rarely ever said things to hurt him directly. It was in the gossip he caught when he was hiding after pulling a good prank. In the whispered conversations of the orphanage staff when they thought he wasn't around. The looks the parents of other kids at the academy gave him when they picked up their children and saw "that boy" near their kids. Then their children started catching on to their disdain and started avoiding him, too.

The way Maru had hurt him was different. Not good, but different. She had hurt him for a tangible reason, as opposed to just disliking him from the beginning like the rest of the village. He'd asked about her husband and then she insulted him. So...something must have happened to her husband. Maybe he'd died a horrible death. Or maybe he just left her. She was mean enough.

Alright, now he felt like a terrible person for even thinking that. He wasn't the most well-mannered person, but even he knew that was a cruel way of thinking.

Now his head hurt. He wasn't used to actually having to think about the relationships he had. He was used to having it one of two ways: being ignored or being hated. Iruka-sensei and Jiji were the only exceptions; Maru and Chi were also exceptions, he supposed, but they weren't the same as Jiji and Iruka-sensei. Well, Chi was nice like them, but not Maru. But Chi was nice in a different way than Iruka-sensei. And the way Iruka-sensei was nice was different than Jiji's. Jiji's way of being nice was different than either of them. Maybe he should have a third group: People who are not in the other two groups but don't really have anything in common.

Naruto ruffled his hair violently and rolled over underneath his crappy old blanket. He needed some sleep.

* * *

When Chi woke up, Maru was not there. Which must mean that she had gotten up earlier than he did. Which never happened.

Or maybe he had just gotten up late? He looked up to the window. Pale blue light was leaking in through the blinds, though whether it was from the sun or some other source he couldn't say. Chi stuck his face up under the blinds to look outside. The outside world was still gray with early morning light.

He hadn't slept in, then. In fact, it was early even for him. Which meant Maru had indeed woken up early. Which, as previously stated, never happened.

Perhaps the feeling of panic that realization brought on was unwarranted. Perhaps she had just spontaneously woken up early (which she hadn't done since she was a shinobi). Or maybe she had gotten hungry enough to wake up early (even though she'd been eating less and less as the years marched on). Heck, maybe she was actually going to do her own darn errands today (even if the shops were closed this early in the morning). He tried to push his nervousness away.

Instead, he decided to use his head. Well, his nose, really. It wasn't as easy as he would have liked. Maru's scent was everywhere, old crossing new. He followed what he believed was the freshest scent. It led him to the bathroom, but she wasn't there anymore. He didn't smell any iron, though. That was good at the very least.

The next place his chosen scent trail led him was the kitchen. The stove was cool. There were no dishes in the sink. He opened the fridge. If anything was missing, he couldn't tell. Maru didn't let him touch anything in the kitchen excluding the table. You set something on fire one time...

Chi shook his head to clear the thought. Now was not the time to get distracted.

The next place his trail led him to was the backyard. The zen garden hadn't been touched since last night, during Maru and Naruto's argument. The circle around the biggest rock was only half-finished. The sand rake was leaned up against the wall of the house. Chi would have finished the job, but the zen garden was another thing he wasn't allowed to touch. This one he didn't mind, though. It seemed to make Maru a little less prickly. When she wasn't being shouted at by a six-year-old, that is.

The scent trail led him past the kunai targets and into the weapons shed. Soft orange morning light drifted in through the only window, little dust spores dancing through the sharp. Chi imagined that they were happy to see light again, as the shade was always down. So Maru must have been in here (though why she felt the need to let light into a room she couldn't see, he wasn't sure). He looked around at the various weapons on the walls and shelves about him. They were all covered in dust, too with the exception of the kunai he had used to teach Naruto the other day. Everything seemed to be in order except...No, one of the spears on the back wall was missing, he didn't really remember what kind it was.

Suddenly, a section of the floor in the back corner popped up.

"Gah!" Chi shouted, jumping back.

Maru stuck her head up out of the new hole in the floor.

"Morning."

"Morning? Morning! That's all you have to say after scaring the crap out of me?" Chi shouted, attempting to regain his composure.

"Did you sleep well?" She was smirking a little and trying to hide it, damn her.

"You know that's not what I meant!" He shouted at her.

Maru leaned forward and rested her arms on the edge of the hole, "I'm sorry for scaring you."

"...You don't have to sound so sarcastic," Chi muttered to himself. Louder he said, "What are you doing down there?"

"Training," she replied simply, "What else would I be doing in the training room?"

Chi let out a frustrated noise, "I don't know. You just disappeared."

"No, I just got up early."

"And when is the last time you did that, Maru?" If Maru's eyes weren't perpetually covered, Chi would be staring straight into them.

Maru shrugged, "A while ago. Take your blessings when you get them, Chi. At least you didn't have to drag me out of bed this time."

"You could have at least told me..." Chi sighed.

"I did," Maru replied, scratching her cheek. It was red as if something had smacked her. If he had to guess, he'd say one of the training dummies had rolled back after being hit and smacked her right in her big dumb face. Good, she deserved it.

"What? No, you didn't," Chi said.

"Yes, I did. I left the shade up," she said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"How was I supposed to know what that meant?" Chi asked.

"What do you mean how? We agreed that when the shade was up, I was training."

"When did we agree on..." It came back to him suddenly. It was a code that they had created when they'd first moved into this house.

"You forgot, didn't you?" Maru asked, resting her chin in her hand. Even with half of her face covered, Chi could feel the judgment rolling off of her in waves.

"Don't look at me like that! We've never even used it!"

"Well I didn't forget," she replied lightly.

"Well, not all of us have the memory of a cat," Chi replied, hating how sulky he sounded.

"What? Isn't the metaphor 'memory of an elephant'?"

"Cats have really good memories, too," Chi replied. Why he was bothering to tell her this, he didn't know.

"...O-kay," was the only reply Maru seemed to have.

An awkward silence reigned for a moment before Maru abruptly slapped her hands against the floor.

"Well!" Maru breathed brightly, "I'm going back down. I probably won't be back up until this afternoon."

"Wait, you have food, right?" Chi asked before Maru could disappear from his line of sight.

"Of course I do," she replied, turning back towards him, "I wouldn't be able to train very long without food."

Chi gave her a suspicious look.

"You don't believe me," she didn't seem offended, at least, "Okay, fine. Here, look."

She climbed down the ladder. Chi heard some rustling down below and then Maru reappeared.

"Here," She tossed a shopping bag at him.

He looked inside. There was an orange peel and the leafy ends of celery in the bag.

"That was breakfast. I have some onigiri and an apple for lunch," she shook another bag at him but didn't throw it. He could see the outline of items in it, at the very least.

"...Okay."

"I left Naruto's lunch in the fridge. It's right in front, you should be able to see it," Maru said.

"Okay," Chi hesitated, "...You're going to talk to him today, though?"

Maru was silent for a moment.

"It's just...I think it's best not to leave stuff like that for too long. I mean you remember what happened with-"

"I remember," Maru cut him off sharply. She winced at the severity of her tone, so she softened her next words, "Of course I remember. I'll...Just bring him here after school and I'll give him a proper apology. With food and everything."

Chi let out a silent, relieved sigh.

To break the tension, he looked down at the bag she had thrown at him and grabbed the leafy celery end, "I can't believe you didn't eat this."

"Eat what?" Maru asked, cocking her head to the side.

"The leafy bits on the ends of the celery."

"They're bitter," Maru flinched when she heard the crunch that the celery made when he bit into it, "Ugh, did you just eat one of those?"

"Mmhmm," Chi mumbled through a mouthful.

"Ew. Ferrets aren't even supposed to eat vegetables," Maru said, frowning in disgust.

Chi swallowed his first bite, "Well, I'm no normal ferret." He threw the second half of his treasure in his mouth.

Maru made a noise in the back of her throat that might have been a laugh. "Oh, I'm very much aware of that. Anyway, I'm going back to training now. You enjoy your disgusting breakfast." The wood panel made a low thump as Maru pulled it back into place.

Chi smiled as he swallowed. At least she was in a good mood.

* * *

Naruto awoke to someone banging on the trapdoor to the attic.

"Naruto! It's time for you to go!" It was one of the personnel at the orphanage. He didn't remember his name. It didn't really matter, anyway.

His headache from last night was still there and all of this shouting and banging wasn't helping. All he wanted to do right now was lay under his crummy blanket and go back to sleep. There was no way anyone was going to get him downstairs.

He shouted as much down to the guy.

There was muffled speech below. Another voice spoke from above.

"Naruto Uzumaki! If you don't come down from there, we'll get Mi-san!" It was a lady this time. Probably another employee. Whatever, they couldn't scare him...Well, they could, but they didn't need to know that.

"Go ahead and get her!" he shouted back.

He turned back over underneath his blanket and pulled his dust-scented pillow over his head. It made him want to sneeze, but the pillow canceled out the noise of people running around below. Comparatively, that was less bad.

He had just started to drift back to sleep when the trapdoor banged open.

Naruto jerked around to see Mana Mi struggling up the ladder to the attic. She was a large woman both about her waist and from head to toe. She had to twist her body in odd positions to fit all of her through the trapdoor. Naruto started to laugh at the sight.

She glared at him as she wrenched her arm through the hole. He decided it would be best to shut his mouth.

Naruto was trying very hard to stand his ground. If he wanted people to respect him, he had to stand by his decisions. The Fourth Hokage had said something like that. Maybe. Or had it been the Second Hokage? Whatever. It was a good line and seemed to fit the situation. Also, it gave him the strength to face the demon woman tugging her rump up through the too-narrow hole in the floor.

He had just begun to think that maybe this wasn't a good idea when Mana Mi put her final foot down on the dusty floorboards. A cloud of dust whipped up around her, but if it bothered her she never showed it. She walked through the dust cloud, her feet making the floorboards rattle. Her long black braid swayed against her back as she walked, reminding him of an angry snake. Her hands were fisted and her arms swung back and forth like those of a particularly determined gorilla as she approached.

Naruto tried to stay put, really he did. But the closer she got, the more nerve he lost.

He managed to stay put until she was about ten steps away. Then he darted away from her. She made to grab for him, but Naruto slipped past. He ran to the trapdoor but stopped short when he looked down.

The two people who had gone to retrieve Mana Mi were staring up at him, those all too familiar cold looks in their eyes. Naruto glanced back at the woman advancing on him. Then he looked back down at the two people below him. He looked back at Mana Mi. Down. Back. Down. Back.

He turned and bolted back towards the brick of a woman behind him. She assumed a pose similar to that of a sumo wrestler, ready to catch the boy. Naruto continued to charge her until the very last second. Then he dropped and slid across the floor right between the Demon Headmistress' legs.

Naruto popped up and made for the window above his bed of blankets. He grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around himself. Then he went crashing through the window. As glass rained down around him, Naruto felt a feeling of triumph...

...Until something caught him by the leg and he crashed face-first into the side of the building.

* * *

Hiruzen Sarutobi was an old man. He had no delusions about this. His back hurt when he woke up. His fingers ached in the cold. It took him longer and longer to get up the many stairs leading to his office. Yet none of these things made him dislike his life.

No, that honor went to his job. The paperwork, the constant complaints, dealings with the council-it all had its own draining effect. The worst drain on his already low energy, however, had to be anything that had to do with one Uzumaki Naruto.

Said boy was sitting in front of him, trussed up like a chicken ready for the oven. He was struggling and shouting obscenities that no six-year-old should know and Mana Mi was shouting even more colorful obscenities right back. Something about being disrespectful. Honestly, he wasn't paying attention. Maybe if he didn't talk they'd wear each other out...

"How dare you use such foul language in front of Hokage-sama!"

"Screw you, lady! I bet he's heard worse!"

"You little brat. You need to learn the meaning of respect!"

No, no sitting quietly probably wasn't the best response in this situation. If he didn't intervene it was likely that this situation would end in violence. He cleared his throat to interrupt them.

They ignored him.

"Oh, whatever you fat hag!"

"I am big-boned you little shit!"

Well, it couldn't be helped. He'd just have to yell. Yet another drain on his energy.

"Naruto! Mi-san! You will cease this petty arguing!"

Mana Mi flinched and quieted immediately. Most citizens weren't acclimated to being yelled at by their leaders, thankfully. Naruto, on the other hand...

"It's no wonder you run an orphanage! There's no way anyone would wanna marry someone as ugly as you!"

"Naruto!" Hiruzen tried again. The boy would at least respond to his own name, if not to authority.

"What?" He drew out the a and whined the whole word like a child. Which he was, but that didn't stop it from being irritating.

"Please allow Mi-san to explain why you're here," Hiruzen sighed. He really didn't want to hear what either of them had to say, but the law made it his responsibility to intervene in anything Naruto-related. He really needed to retire soon...

Mana Mi cleared her throat and gave Naruto a side-eye. The boy stuck his tongue out at her.

"Why you-!" Mi began, but Hiruzen cut her off with a sharp look. She didn't look happy, but she finally began her debriefing: "Hokage-sama, this boy is a menace. He is a strain on my staff with his childish pranks and constant troublemaking. We have so many children to care for and he thinks he has the right to all of our attention," she turned her anger on Naruto, "Well, that isn't true, mister! The orphanage has enough problems to deal with without your constant meddling! Especially since-"

"Mi-san," the Hokage interrupted, "I believe this meeting is for my benefit. Please direct your complaints towards me and not the boy in question."

"O-of course, Hokage-sama," Mi replied, snapping her gaze away from Naruto. She cleared her throat again and her respectful tone returned. "This boy has been attempting to undermine this orphanage since before he could walk! From the incident with the wet nurse all the way until just yesterday. Do you know what he did?"

The Hokage picked up the report on his desk to give the illusion he needed to check, but he already knew: "He attempted to escape by jumping through a closed window."

"He jumped through a closed window!" Mana Mi crowed before the Hokage had even finished his sentence. "He completely shattered it! Now we have to pay to get it fixed. Hokage-sama, I'm sure you're aware of the financial state of the orphanage," she didn't wait for the Hokage's response before bowling onward. "Can you tell me how we're supposed to pay for it when there's so much we have to pay for already? Food, clothing, staff, medical care, upkeep, toys to keep the children happy, and now repairs for whenever he-" she jabbed a meaty finger at Naruto- "feels the need to let out his chaotic nature. We can barely keep the normal children in line without him causing problems. And after the war and the attack, there have been so many children without parents. We already have more children than the orphanage was ever meant to handle. Not to mention the understaffing..." Throughout her speech, Mi had become progressively more unraveled and tears were beginning to form in her eyes.

He offered Mana Mi a handkerchief. She thanked him as she took it. The room was silent for a moment while she blew her nose. Naruto was looking at her as if she had grown two heads. Since when did Mana Mi, Demon Headmistress of Konoha Orphanage, ever express any emotion other than fury?

"I'm sorry, this is so unbecoming of me," she sighed, wiping her eyes. Mi took a deep breath and let it back out, seeming to regain her composure. "Forgive me Hokage-sama, I believe the strain of the day is catching up with me."

Hiruzen nodded, quirking his lips up into something akin to a smile, "It's alright, Mi-san, we all have those days."

Mi tried to hide a sniffle, glancing sideways at Naruto to check if he was mocking her. The six-year-old sat there looking confused, but otherwise mock-less.

"Thank you, Hokage-sama. As I was saying, Naruto is a disruptive influence. And it's not just the window. He came home three hours after curfew two nights ago, riding on some sort of giant polecat-"

"He's a ferret, his name is Chi, and he's my friend!" Naruto interrupted defensively.

The Hokage sat up a little straighter at that. A ferret named Chi? Now that was unusual. He only knew of one such creature, and they hardly did anything more than go to the south district market and back home every day. Hiruzen leaned forward on his elbows. Today just kept getting more and more tiring.

"Whatever it was!" Mana Mi interjected before Naruto could steer the conversation off topic. "It was a strange animal around my children. But that's not all!" Mi continued, glaring at Naruto, "After I gave him the reasonable punishment of scrubbing pots for a few days, he assaulted one of my staff!"

"She grabbed me first!" Naruto shouted at Mi, "She yelled at me about how I was being ungrateful and grabbed my arm! So I pushed her off and ran. It's her fault for scaring me..." the last part was mumbled into the collar of his t-shirt.

Hiruzen sighed and massaged his forehead with his hand, "Naruto, please. Continue, Mi-san."

"After that, he disappeared for the rest of the day and didn't come back that night. I didn't see him again until the next evening-After curfew, again! And this morning he wouldn't come down for school, so I had to go up to get him. When I did, well, he jumped out through the window."

Hiruzen sighed and leaned back in his chair, pondering his options. He couldn't let this offense go, of course. Staying out after dark was far too dangerous for someone as young as Naruto, especially taking into consideration who he was. Punishing him harshly would undoubtedly appease Mi-san. However, Naruto wouldn't take that sitting down. The harsher the punishment he got, the more he rebelled. They'd both just be back in his office next week, spitting curses at each other.

There was always the option of putting Naruto in the foster system, but that came with its own problems. First and foremost being Naruto's Jinchuuriki status. The wounds caused by the Nine-tails' release were still fairly fresh and there was no guarantee that the boy wouldn't be mistreated for the association. In fact, he already was. Trapping him with a family that resented him wouldn't help anything. Besides, the foster care system was already strained. As Mi-san had said, the war and the attack had left a lot of children behind. There were more children than there were families able to take them. In the past few years, they'd had to become ever more strict with which children got put into the foster system. Only children who met a specific set of criteria were introduced; well-behaved, no known history of medical issues, good performance in school: model children. Unfortunately, that left many children who were still deserving of a good home in the lurch.

Like the boy sitting in front of him. If Naruto were two years older, he'd be eligible for a limited sort of emancipated minor status. But a future solution didn't help him in the here and now.

Hiruzen massaged his forehead with one hand, he really needed to retire.

"Mi-san, may I speak to Naruto alone?"

Mi looked at Naruto, eyes narrowed and then back to the Hokage. What she expected to see or convey, Hiruzen didn't know. Nor would he, because Mi simply bowed and let the two of them alone.

"Yeah, good ribbons!" Naruto shouted at her back.

Hiruzen resisted the urge to correct him. Pick and choose your battles, Professor.

"Naruto," Hiruzen sighed, getting the boy's attention.

"What? She's a mean old hag and I ha...I don't like her," Naruto slouched in his chair, pouting.

"Naruto, why did you disappear on Mi-san?" He kept his tone even and unjudgemental.

"I told ya already," Naruto replied, pulling at the ropes that kept him in place, "She's mean! Besides, no self-respecting future Hokage would live in a dump like that!"

"You've made your feelings on Mi-san very clear, Naruto. However, that does not excuse the fact that you disappeared without anyone knowing where you were for over 24-hours. We need to know that you're safe, Naruto, and disappearing hardly helps that. This meeting wasn't called to spite you, it was called because we're worried about you."

"Like she cares!" Naruto yelled, wriggling in his seat.

"She does, Naruto. About her orphanage, about the children within it, about her village. She may not show you any love or affection, but know that she does care."

"Whatever," Naruto grumbled, ceasing his struggling. He chose instead to glare moodily to the side.

Hiruzen sat back in his seat and fixed Naruto with a stern gaze, "Now, are you going to tell me where you've been disappearing to the past few days, or do I need to have an Anbu escort you to and from the academy every day for the rest of your time there?"

"Aw man, that would be pretty sweet! I'd have my own Anbu guard just like you do, Jiji!" Naruto grinned at him.

"Not if I had them wake you up at five in the morning and arrive at school two hours early," Hiruzen replied evenly.

Naruto's rejection of the idea was immediate, "But that would be no fun!"

"This isn't about fun, Naruto. This is about your safety."

"I'm perfectly safe with Maru-bachan and Chi!" Naruto pouted.

And there was the other name he needed to confirm his theory. Amekemono Maru and her ferret partner Chi, interacting with the world again after six years of living in obscurity. Interesting.

"And who is this 'Maru-bachan'?"

Naruto perked up at the question, "She's this weird old lady who has a giant ferret named Chi. She's been teaching me how to throw kunai! Oh, she gives me free food, too. She's actually a really good cook, but don't tell her I said that. 'Cuz she's kind of a jerk. Actually, we got in this fight yesterday, and she said something pretty mean. But, I was pretty mean, too." Naruto would have scratched the back of his neck if his arms weren't bound. He almost looked apologetic. At his next words, though, he immediately brightened, "But I'm gonna apologize today and then she's gonna train me some more!" Then he seemed to realize something, "Aw, crap! Chi was supposed to pick me up this morning! Man, he's gonna be so worried! That guy is such a worrywart, y'know?"

Hiruzen regarded Naruto silently, weighing his words. So, Maru had agreed to train someone again? That was unexpected. Although, Naruto was the reigning champion of unexpected. Maybe he shouldn't be so surprised.

"Hey, Jiji, can we hurry this up? I gotta get to class, so Chi can pick me up for training after!"

Naruto wanting to get to class sooner? Now that really was surprising.

"You say this Maru person is training you? How did that happen?"

"Eh? Well, I guess it happened after Chi tried training me by himself. He wasn't very good," Naruto stage-whispered the end of the sentence as if Chi were actually present, "After that Maru-bachan stepped in. She was a way better teacher. But, uh, don't tell her I said that, either." Naruto grinned sheepishly at him.

Of course Naruto had managed to get Maru to train him. Of course he had. The boy took twice as long to learn anything and managed to do new things wrong every time. Hiruzen had heard as much from Naruto's teachers at the academy. There was nothing Maru hated more than sitting by while someone did something incorrectly right in front of her. And Naruto was the king of Doing Things Wrong.

Hiruzen sighed. He tended to do a lot of that around Naruto. "Did it ever occur to you not to accept help from a stranger?"

"Eh? Why not? She wanted to help and she has a ninja ferret!" Naruto said, staring at him wide-eyed.

Fantastic. They needed to have the stranger danger talk...again. But he decided to drop it for now. Maru was many things, but a danger to Naruto she was not.

"Hey, Jiji," Naruto began, breaking Hiruzen out of his thoughts, "Maru-obachan and Chi were shinobi, right?"

"They were, yes. They retired shortly after the attack by the Nine-Tailed Fox."

"Were they, like, a super cool fighting duo or something? Could they form into one giant ferret-human cross? Did they do really super-secret cool stuff?" Then he seemed to come up with something he found twice as interesting as any of that, "Did they help defeat the Nine-Tail's with the Fourth Hokage?"

"Naruto, you know very well that I can't give you that kind of information," Hiruzen said, trying to answer the question as little as possible, "Missions and affiliations must be kept secret in order to protect our village."

"Ugh, but secrets are so boring!" Naruto complained, kicking his legs in displeasure.

"Perhaps," Hiruzen consented, lips twitching slightly, "But they are necessary for the protection of our village and its people. Someday, when you are a shinobi, you may be made privy to some of these secrets."

"Hey, there's no maybe about it, Jiji! I'll know all the secrets, 'cuz I'm gonna be the next Hokage!"

Hiruzen let himself chuckle a bit at that, "Well, you can't be the next Hokage if you fail out of the academy. Let's get you out of here so you can make it to class."

"Aw yeah, finally!"

"After we talk about your punishment, of course."

"Aw, c'mon, Jiji!"

* * *

Chi was not freaking out, not at all. Small changes in the schedule were to be expected. After all, a little ball of energy had crashed into his life just a few days ago. Change was only natural after a thing like that. But there were certain expectations he had. Expectations that had to be met to keep life in balance. Naruto disappearing didn't help that. Nor did the half-dozen orphanage employees shooing him away when he tried to ask after the boy.

But he wasn't freaking out. Nope. He was just fine. Maru's little change to the schedule hadn't helped, but it wasn't enough to knock him over. He was a strong ferret. He'd been a shinobi since he and Maru had met! He could handle a little schedule change.

What if Naruto hadn't really been fine after the fight yesterday, though? What if he actually resented Maru for her behavior and was never going to come back. Then things would just go back to him and Maru, alone. In that house. All day, every day. Only going out to do the shopping and then back in again. No one from the old days visited anymore. And now his only connection to the outside world hated them, and-!

Okay, maybe he was freaking out a little bit. Being cooped up with only Maru for company had, perhaps, made him unable to cope with sudden change. A little bit. Maybe.

But this was fine! It was because there were plenty of reasonable explanations that didn't involve him losing his only connection to the outside world. Maybe Naruto had slept in and decided to head to class without him. Of course, that would leave him without lunch, but he was a resilient kid! Maru could make him some extra food for dinner to balance out the missed meal. Or maybe he was sick today and he had decided to stay home so as not to make everyone else sick. Naruto wasn't exactly what you'd call considerate, but he was still a good kid. Although, he didn't really seem the type to stay home for something as petty as a cold. Oh, God. What if he was really sick? What if he had some deadly disease that was slowly eating away at him-

No. No, there was no need to be overly dramatic. Everything was fine. It's fine. Really it's fine. There's nothing wrong. It's fine. Really fine. It's fine. The world wasn't going to end just because he didn't know where Naruto was. It. Was. Fine.

Except it wasn't because Naruto was gone and Chi didn't have any idea where he could be. He didn't have Maru's creepy chakra-sensing ability. He just had his stupid little motley nose and...Wait, his nose. Of course! He could just use scent to track him. Just like he had hundreds of times as a shinobi. Right. He'd forgotten he could do that for a minute there.

It turned out that he didn't need to go far. Naruto was on his way to the Academy from Hokage Tower.

"There you are!" Chi exclaimed when he saw his anchor to the real world. He may have sounded a little more panicked than he wanted to admit.

"Oh, hey Chi," Naruto shouted, walking up to him leisurely (as if he hadn't disappeared for two and a half hours).

"Where have you been!" Chi demanded, his voice somewhere between a squeak and a squawk.

Naruto looked a bit startled by his panic, "Uh, the old man just wanted to talk to me about some orphanage junk. It's not a big deal. I get sent to him all the time."

"You couldn'tve left me a note or something, telling me where you were going?"

"I dunno. Was I supposed to?" Naruto looked confused.

"Yes!" Chi cried, voice rising in pitch, "That's what you do when the schedule changes. You let other people know! You don't just leave without notifying anyone. What happens if something goes wrong and no one knows where you are?"

Naruto just stared at him through his little tirade, looking more and more perplexed by the second. "Uh...?"

Chi was suddenly very aware of the boy's confusion, "Oh! Oh, sorry. Sorry! I'm sorry, I'm...I was just a little worried, Naruto. I didn't mean to yell."

Naruto stared at him for a few seconds more, then gave Chi a face-splitting grin. "Eh, it's alright. Adults are always yelling at me for stuff. First time one's yelled at me out of worry before, though."

Chi felt embarrassed now that he had better control over himself. At least Naruto wasn't upset. But that could have gone over badly, considering how Naruto had reacted to Maru's remark yesterday. He really needed to have better control of himself.

"Well, I'm sorry for overreacting. How 'bout I give you a ride the rest of the way to the Academy?"

Naruto cheered and jumped on Chi's back without hesitation.

* * *

He was late again. Of course, Naruto was always late. It never stopped Iruka from worrying, though. As far as he knew, the boy had no one looking after him. Well, aside from the Hokage. But he was one man, and Naruto was one very hard to control boy.

Iruka sighed, attempting to clear his mind. His students were doing a written assignment at the moment, making the room quiet. It wouldn't last for long, unfortunately. Sakura, Shino, and Sasuke had already finished. Thankfully they tended towards sitting quietly, but it was only a matter of time until others finished who weren't so quiet. He needed to worry about the students in front of him, not the ones not present.

And yet...

"Hey everybody!" a boisterous voice shouted, breaking the brief silence. Well, there went everyone's concentration.

"Naruto! Where have you been?" Iruka yelled as he stood from his desk.

"Jiji called me into the office for causin' trouble again," Naruto crowed. He plodded down the steps to stand in front of Iruka. "What's my punishment this time? Detention?" He asked.

Iruka pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. Was he really so predictable? The typical punishment for being late was staying however long you had missed, but Naruto was over two hours late. Iruka had better things to do, like grade papers and ask himself why he decided to become a teacher. He could punish the whole class for Naruto's tardiness, but he knew how that would go over. They'd all get mad at Naruto, which didn't help with his already-bereft social life. There needed to be some kind of punishment, though. Detention it was, then.

"Yes, Naruto, detention. And I'm not going to sit by and let you leave this time!" Iruka plonked his hand down on Naruto's be-goggled head and marched him directly to his seat, "Now sit down and do your worksheet like everyone else." He placed a paper in front of the boy.

Naruto groaned in his Naruto-way but actually did start in on the paper.

"Alright, everyone, show's over. Get back to your assignments," Iruka said as he descended the stairs, "Yes, Shikamaru that means you, too. I can see you trying to nap over there. Do I need to give you detention too?"

Needless to say, he did.

* * *

"Aw man, finally!" Naruto shouted. He leaped up from his desk, (remembering to grab his lunch this time) and trotted up the stairs to the place where Shikamaru and Chouji usually sat. "Hey, you guys wanna eat lunch together again?"

Chouji gave him a shy smile and replied, "Sure, I just have to wake Shikamaru up." He poked said sleeping boy on the shoulder. "Shika, hey. It's time to go outside." Shikamaru grumbled about waking up being "troublesome" but relented.

Naruto ran out ahead of them, too excited to wait. Chouji sped up to keep up with his energetic companion. Shikamaru seemed content to trail behind them, hands in his pockets.

Naruto plopped down on the grass enthusiastically. They really were his friends! They didn't mind having lunch with him or anything like that. Plus, they were really nice to him. Well, Chouji was. Shikamaru just seemed to kind of be going along with it. That was more than he could say for anyone else, though.

Chouji sat down next to him and began undoing the ties on his lunch. Naruto watched as the contents were revealed to him: gyoza, apple slices cut to look like bunnies, some clear noodle things in some kind of sauce, and some kind of vegetable mixture.

"What're those?" Naruto asked, pointing at the noodles.

Chouji gave him a confused look, "You've never seen tokoroten before?"

Naruto shook his head, looking down at the clear noodles. They looked a little bit like worms. That thought made him a bit reluctant to continue asking about them. Fortunately (or unfortunately, he wasn't sure) Chouji's disbelief outweighed his interest in his friend's facial expressions.

"You have to try some!" he exclaimed, shoving his bento towards Naruto, "My mom makes them every summer when it's really hot." Naruto reluctantly took a noodle and stared at it, "It's the last batch she's making for the season. It's gonna be fall soon, and then it'll be too cold for it."

Naruto looked down at the noodle and up at his friend. Chouji was staring at him with wide, excited eyes. His mom had made it, after all, it's no surprise that he'd be excited to share. Her tonkatsu had been really good, too. Maybe these wouldn't be too bad. Naruto ate the noodle.

It was surprisingly sour, which he hadn't expected. The texture was kind of weird, too. Like eating a gummy candy, but it wasn't sweet or covered in sugar. In a word, it was-

"Amazing!" Naruto exclaimed, "Can I have another?"

Chouji nodded, grinning back at his food buddy.

"What's amazing?" Shikamaru asked, dropping onto the grass next to them. He'd taken his sweet time getting there.

"My mom made tokoroten," Chouji replied, offering the bento to Shikamaru. To Naruto's surprise, Shikamaru actually snagged a couple noodles.

"Your mom's a really good cook, Chouji!" Naruto declared through a mouthful of noodles.

"Yeah," Chouji replied sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head, "She's the best. What did your mom make you?" He asked, leaning towards Naruto's unopened bento.

Naruto's enthusiasm flagged a bit at the mention of his mother, but then he remembered he had food and his dilemma was quickly forgotten.

"Let's see." He put the simple box in his lap. Maru-bachan hadn't tied it with a fancy cloth like Chouji or Shikamaru's moms did. He removed the lid and peered inside. "Uh...Some fish stuff, rice, vegetable stuff-" he frowned at them as though that would make them disappear- "and an orange."

"Tangerine," Chouji corrected.

"What's the difference?" Naruto asked

"Tangerines are smaller," Chouji said, "and the fish looks like shiojake. The vegetables look like sunomono."

"Shiojake? Sunomono?" Naruto had never heard of these dishes.

"Yeah," Chouji replied, looking just as confused albeit for a different reason, "You've never had either of those before either? You've never had salted salmon for breakfast or pickled cucumbers with dinner?"

Naruto sat back and stared up at the sky in thought, "I dunno, maybe I have had the salmon stuff, but I hate vegetables. I'd never eat cucumbers." Naruto crossed his arms and pouted at the vegetables as if such an action would will them out of existence.

"Can I have them, then?" Chouji asked.

"Sure," Naruto responded, very happy to be rid of them. Besides, he'd eaten a good portion of Chouji's tokoroten. To be even fairer, Naruto also gave him a slice of his salmon stuff (shiojake, Chouji reminded him).

"Oh, man!" Chouji exclaimed through a mouthful of salmon, "This is really good!"

Naruto took a mouthful and, yeah, it really was. Today was just one taste adventure after another. He had no idea food other than old man Ichiraku's ramen could actually taste good. The orphanage had really been holding out on him.

Three empty bento boxes later, the boys all laid on their backs looking at the sky.

"Hey, Naruto, whose weasel was that we met yesterday?" Chouji questioned.

"Oh, Chi isn't anyone's. I mean, he lives with Maru-bachan, but he's not her pet or anything. Actually, I think she's more like his pet. He has to shop for her and clean up after her and stuff," this idea seemed to amuse Naruto very much because he started giggling.

"Is he her contract animal?" Shikamaru asked, his first foray into the conversation since he'd sat down.

"Contract animal?"

"An animal you make a contract with, so that you can summon them in battle," Shikamaru clarified.

Naruto's eyes went wide in wonder, "You can do that?" He exclaimed.

"Is that a no?" Shikamaru asked flatly.

"Eh, I don't think Maru-bachan summoned Chi, he's just kinda there," Naruto responded, scratching his head, "I guess I've never really thought about it."

"Hmph, troublesome," Shikamaru muttered, squinting up at the sky, "Is he a partner in ninjutsu like with the Inuzuka's, then."

"Uh..." Naruto sat up on his arms to look at Shikamaru, "I dunno, I never asked. Why?'S that important?"

Shikamaru just let out a sigh and said: "Nevermind."

"Hey, didn't you get detention, too Shikamaru?" Naruto asked as he flipped onto his stomach.

"Yeah, but it'd be a drag to go," he sighed, "I'm probably gonna skip again."

"Yeah, me too," Naruto added, picking at the grass. Then something seemed to occur to him, "Do your parents get mad at you when you do that?"

"Yes."

"What about you Chouji?" Naruto asked, looking over at his other companion.

"My mom and dad don't get mad, they just give me this really sad look," Chouji replied, a discomfited look on his face. "The last time my dad said he was disappointed by my behavior..."

"Do they, like, punish you or anything?" he asked, feeling a little nervous. He couldn't help but think of how Chi would react if he heard Naruto had skipped out on something as important (to adults) as detention. Or even Maru-bachan's, lord help him.

"My mom tells me to clean the house, but I don't do it. Then she gets mad about that and makes me clean while she watches everything I do. It's such a pain," Shikamaru sighed, the thought alone making him tired.

"My dad usually has me study some old family scrolls for a few hours. They're really boring," Chouji adds, "And then I have to help mom in the kitchen, but I usually do that anyway."

Naruto considered the kind of punishment Maru-bachan would come up with.

They say the imagination can be scarier than reality.

* * *

It had been a while since any of the four most detention-prone students had stayed after for their sentence. Now two of them were actually in his class, still sitting down. Well, one of them was. Naruto was sitting there diligently, hands tapping the table in front of him. Shikamaru, on the other hand, was sound asleep. He probably hadn't even noticed his peers leaving. Chouji usually woke him up to go outside, but this time he had glanced over at Naruto and decided not to. Maybe he didn't want Naruto to pay his debt to society all alone. The boy really did have a heart of gold, if his eating habits weren't so disruptive, he wouldn't rack up so much detention. At least he wasn't in there today, so maybe he was actually happening. Iruka could only hope.

"Hey, Iruka-sensei," Naruto called down at him, "How long do I gotta stay here?"

"It's how long do I have to stay here, and that depends on how fast the two of you work. You need to clean the board, sweep the floors and wipe down the desks. As soon as that's done and done well," he stressed, "Then you can leave."

Naruto groaned and banged his head on the desk. Iruka massaged his forehead. There was no way that the two of them would even finish the task. As soon as Shikamaru woke up, he'd be gone. It wouldn't be fair to give Naruto the whole room to clean all by himself, but what else was he supposed to do? He'd given the rest of the class a free pass from cleaning duty for the day.

His thoughts were disrupted by Naruto's enthusiastic shout.

"Okay, then. We'll just have to do it super good and super fast so we can get outta here. Right Shikamaru?" Naruto called over to his friend, waking him up.

"Ugh, troublesome," he mumbled into the arm he'd been using as a pillow.

Iruka was sure that Shikamaru would get up and leave at that point, but instead, the boy stood from the bench and descended the stairs. He grabbed the erasers (the easiest thing to clean) and walked over to the window. Naruto, taking inspiration from his friend, grabbed a bucket from the closet in the corner and started to run to the sink in the hallway.

"Wait a second, Naruto!" Iruka called to him before he could get too far, "I have to come with you to fill that. Which means you have to come with both of us, Shikamaru."

Naruto whined at having been slowed down and Shikamaru grumbled at having to put extra effort into anything. But they were actually cooperating. That never happened. He half expected Naruto to turn around and tell him how he'd totally fallen for it. That their compliance was simply meant to be a prank and then he'd have an eraser dropped on his head. Then they'd run away laughing, having successfully duped their sensei.

But they just kept cooperating. Even when he made Shikamaru go all the way outside to clean the erasers, and not just lean out the window like he had planned to do. Even when Naruto had to scrub every single row of tables and remove all of the graffiti they had accrued over the day. Even when they had to sweep the corners of the room.

Quite frankly, Iruka was confused. Happy with the change in attitude of course, but still confused. Maybe he just shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth...?

That adage proved to be true until the boys were just finishing with packing up the trash.

"Alright, boys, this is the last of it," Iruka replied, watching closely to make sure they tied the knots on the bags properly, "Once you take it out back, you're free to head home."

"Hell yeah!" Naruto shouted, pumping his fist in the air and jumping up and down.

"Hey, loudmouth, try not to jump around so much while I'm tying the bag," Shikamaru griped as he tried to keep his own bag away from his detention-buddy's exuberance. Iruka couldn't help but chuckle at the boys. They really had done well today, heck he was downright prou-

Something out the window caught Naruto's eye. There was a loud bang as the boy dropped the trash bag he'd slung over his shoulder to wave at someone through the window. Iruka turned at the sudden interruption to see...

A giant mink. There was a giant mink at his classroom window. It was waving back at Naruto, too.

"Naruto, why is there a giant mink in the window?" Iruka asked voice strained.

"Eh?" Naruto asked snapping his head towards his teacher, "Whatsa mink sensei? That's Chi," Naruto replied then, seeming to realize that he'd overlooked something, added, "He's actually a ferret. A ninja ferret!" He turned quickly to pick up his trashbag once again, "C'mon Shikamaru! We gotta finish with the trash!" Naruto then proceeded to pick up his bag and go darting out of the room, ignoring Iruka's shouts for him to "stop running" and Shikamaru's tired "troublesome" as they followed the little ball of energy outside.

* * *

Chi was a little disappointed if he were being honest with himself. He had told Naruto to let him know where he was so that he wouldn't worry. And yet here he stood, Naruto-less, outside the academy without any explanation as to why his new connection to the world hadn't shown.

It wasn't all terrible, however. The children who had streamed out of the academy right at the bell were very well-behaved when he revealed to them that he could speak. They were polite when they asked him if they could pet his fur (and they gave excellent belly rubs, by the way). They were great company, but he couldn't get rid of that little tiny flea in the back of his mind, whispering that Naruto was not alright. He was lying in a ditch somewhere, cold and alone. Wondering why his dear friend, Chi, wasn't there to save him.

Chi was attempting to ignore the flea when the little Akimichi boy from yesterday came trundling up to him, a bag of chips in his hands.

"Hey, Chi-san!" He chirped, somehow speaking perfectly clearly through a mouthful. He made to pet Chi, realized something, and then wiped his hands on his jacket. Chi might have cringed slightly, but he let the boy pet him anyway.

"Hey, Akimichi kid!" he let his head lower back to the ground as the bliss of belly rubs washed over him. Naruto? Naruto who? That little flea could just keep its mouth shut.

"It's Chouji. Akimichi Chouji," the boy replied as he stepped away from Chi.

Chi made what he would swear wasn't a whine (but totally was) "Aw, what are you stopping for?"

"Oh, my mom's already here to pick me up," the boy replied, gesturing to a brown-haired woman who was waving at them, "I just came over to pet you and give you Naruto's message."

"Message?" Chi asked, pulling himself up into a sitting position. Here it was, the terrible thing he'd been waiting for.

"He said he'd be late because he has detention with Iruka-sensei. He doesn't know how long he'll be, but he said you get worried easily. He thought it'd help if I came over to tell you. I wouldn't worry too much though, Iruka-sensei only put them on clean-up duty instead of making them stay as much time as they skipped."

Oh. That was...not nearly as terrible as he had thought it would be. Well, detention was bad, but it wasn't dead bad. Small victories, he supposed.

"Oh! Well, thank you for telling me!" Chi chirped, hoping his voice didn't sound too shaky. All that worrying for nothing. Naruto had even listened to his worries about his lateness and had adapted to his request. It was surprising, to say the least. Maybe it shouldn't have been, but he'd been living with no one but the queen of unaccommodating for the past three years.

"No problem," Chouji replied, waving back to Chi as he ran backwards towards his mother. The boy nearly tripped over a rock in doing so. Deciding this way was too a bit too risky for his liking, Chouji flipped himself around and trotted more steadily toward his mother.

'Cute kid,' Chi thought to himself, 'Naruto has a good eye for friends.'

He let out a sigh through his nose and picked himself up off the ground. There wasn't really much else he could do but wait. Maybe he could score some pats off of the kids that didn't leave as early.

Suddenly, he got the distinct impression that there were eyes on him. He turned around and spotted a little pair of lilac eyes watching him. Ah, so she was a Hyuuga, then. Upon realizing she had been caught, the girl blushed and retreated behind the tree she had been hiding behind.

"Hi there," Chi called, waving a paw at her.

The girl didn't move for a moment, continuing to hide out behind her tree. Then she peeked out again to check if he was still watching. He was, so she blushed again and went right back to hiding.

Chi sat patiently for a while, watching her repeat this peek/hide routine she had going on. She was young enough that it was still cute instead of creepy.

Finally, the girl seemed to realize that she wasn't really fooling him at all; he had seen her and she was either going to have to run away or approach him. Although he supposed she could just keep hiding until he left, but that would be a while. Thankfully she decided on the approach option.

It was a shaky and hesitant approach. It seemed to Chi that the girl was painfully shy. She kept tapping her index fingers together and staring at her shoes. It took her an entire minute just to shuffle over to him.

It took her another minute to even speak, "U-um."

"Yes?" Chi prompted, keeping his voice as gentle as possible.

"Y-you..." she seemed to struggle to get her words out. A stutterer if he wasn't mistaken.

"Take your time, I'm in no rush," Chi said gently. The girl looked up at him briefly but quickly snapped her eyes back down to her fidgeting fingers.

"Th...th-ank you," she whispered. A silence ensued wherein the girl began playing with the hem of her jacket. "Y...you...I saw- Naruto-kun is a friend?" Again, she glanced up at him.

"Uh, I don't know, is he your friend?" Chi asked. How was he supposed to know if Naruto was friends with this girl?

Frustration quickly flashed across her face only to be replaced by shame. Suddenly Chi realized what she had meant.

"Oh! You're asking if Naruto and I are friends!" The girl gave him a relieved nod, her shoulders relaxing a bit. "Well, I suppose you'd have to ask him to make it official. But, from my perspective, yes. Naruto and I are friends. Why?"

Her fidgeting got worse as she considered his question. Her cheeks were turning red again and she began digging at the dirt with a foot.

"I noticed he's been bringing food to school lately," she answered, her voice catching on the word "school".

"Yeah, my friend Maru makes them for him. Since you noticed that, I bet you noticed that I was the one bringing him to school these past few days, too. You're very observant, Hyuuga-chan." The girl blushed even deeper. "Why do you ask?"

"I just wanted to know if," she paused to take a shaky breath, "if he's been adopted?"

Chi let the words wash over him as he considered them. It had never really occurred to him to consider adopting Naruto. He'd only known the boy for a few days, after all. That was hardly a solid basis for a parent-child relationship. And yet, he adored the boy, even in this short time. Maybe it was because Naruto reminded Chi of the people he and Maru had once cared about deeply, or maybe it was just his innate charm. Probably both. He certainly wouldn't mind having the little ball of sunshine around permanently, Maru be damned. He wondered how messy the bureaucracy surrounding a ferret adopting a demon-container would be. Very, he guessed.

"No, unfortunately," the girl's shoulders drooped, "But, hey! He's got great people like the two of us looking out for him, so it can't be too bad."

The girl's face was practically glowing red at this point, "I-I-I!" Her words seemed to be stuck in the back of her throat.

"Whoah there, Hyuuga-chan. It's alright. I didn't mean to fluster you so badly. Let's backpedal a bit, hm?" he suggested, "Let's do some introductions. I'm Chi, the fabulous ferret. And you are?"

Her blush faded a bit, but her fidgeting didn't stop, "Hyuuga Hinata."

"Oh, you're the little Hyuuga princess," Chi exclaimed, feeling a little silly for not realizing it earlier. Hyuuga Hiashi had had a little daughter almost six years ago now and as far as he knew she was the only little Hyuuga girl currently attending the academy.

Hinata nodded but didn't answer, still finding her shoes remarkably interesting.

"Well, it's lovely to meet you Hinata-hime," Chi said, giving her best bow he could.

And the blush was back and redder than ever. Hinata looked like she was either going to either pass out or run away. Chi was about to (attempt to) disarm her with his charm, but it seems that she had taken the "run away" option.

Hinata was about halfway across the courtyard when she abruptly about-faced, shouted "Itwasnicemeetingyou!" wheeled back around, and ran straight out of the gates.

'Well,' Chi thought, slightly bewildered, 'at least it killed some time.'

He decided he'd go check on Naruto before he met anyone else. If he remembered correctly, all of the classrooms here had big windows that he could peek in through. Naruto was bound to be in one of them.

* * *

Staying behind was such a drag, but he didn't want to leave the idiot he'd managed to make friends with alone to deal with cleaning an entire classroom. Great, good for him. Now he was tired from cleaning and annoyed by the boy's shouting. If there was one thing Shikamaru hated more than being tired without being allowed to sleep, it was being annoyed by loud noises.

Naruto was very good at making loud noises.

The current cause of said loud noise was the presence of the weird weasel-thing he and Chouji had met the other day.

Iruka-sensei hadn't reacted particularly well to the thing's presence and was demanding that Naruto allow him to meet the strange creature. Something about safety or something. It didn't really matter. All Shikamaru wanted to do was sleep. But he couldn't do that until the classroom was clean, which meant he'd have to take out the trash, which meant he needed Iruka-sensei to go with him, which he couldn't do while Iruka was yelling at Naruto. How troublesome.

"-solutely not! I'm not letting you go home with that thing until I know it's safe. Honestly, Naruto how could you be so-"

Shikamaru stopped listening again. They were standing in the hallway outside the classroom where Iruka had grabbed Naruto to keep him from going outside. Something about stranger danger. Although, it seemed like a pretty silly plan to send something so conspicuous as a giant ferret to kidnap a child. Besides, his dad had told him that there was always a handful of ANBU guards stationed around the place to take care of any threats. If someone really wanted to kidnap a kid they'd have to go to a lot more trouble than that.

"-prove it! Tell him Shikamaru!" Naruto shouting his name pulled Shimaru back out of his thoughts.

"What am I proving?" He asked, shifting his trashbag from one shoulder to another.

"That Chi's a good guy," Naruto responded, glaring at Iruka-sensei.

Chi? Who was-? Oh, right, the weasel. "He seemed fine to me," Shikamaru said, "My dad new 'im and stuff, so I guess he's alright. Something about his summoner working with him during the war?" Honestly, this was way too much of a hassle, but he needed to answer so that he could just go home, already.

"Would your father vouch for it, Shikamaru?" Iruka-sensei asked, giving his student his best "stern teacher" look.

"Yeah, sure," Shikamaru sighed, only half-listening. At this rate, it'd be dark before he got home. Then he wouldn't get to watch clouds at all. Not that his mom would let him. This was the second time this week he'd gotten detention. She was probably sitting at the kitchen table right now dreaming up creative punishments for him. What would it be this time? Cleaning the whole house? Making him organize her recipe cards? Forcing him and his dad to train together? Well, she only rolled that one out when she was mad at both of them, but he wouldn't put it past her.

Suddenly Naruto shouted and pumped his fist in the air. He made to take off towards the exit, but Iruka grabbed his shoulder.

"Wait a minute, Naruto! You and Shikamaru need to throw that stuff in the dumpster out back before you can leave."

Naruto's momentum didn't seem to disappear, though. He simply flipped around towards the back entrance, grabbed Shikamaru's bag from him, and took off towards the dumpsters. Shikamaru simply blinked after his blonde companion, then turned to his teacher.

"Can I go now, Iruka-sensei?"

Iruka looked a bit annoyed, at him or Naruto or both of them, he wasn't sure. Whatever, it didn't matter. Because Iruka said:

"Yes, Shikamaru, you may go."

Shikamaru simply turned on his heel and began trudging towards the exit. Behind him, he could here Iruka-sensei let out an exhausted sigh. Maybe after this whole ordeal, the teacher would finally stop sentencing them to detention and just let it go. Yeah, and maybe his mom would let him sleep in on a school day.

When he exited the building, he saw the weasel-thing back out front.

"Afternoon, Shikamaru-chan!" it chirped. Shikamaru tried not to look annoyed at the cutesy nickname. He was going to be seven in a few weeks. He was too old for this "-chan" business.

Naruto burst out of the exit right behind him, nearly hitting Shikamaru with the door.

"Chi!" Naruto shouted as he hug-tackled the creature.

Shikamaru watched the ensuing squabble with a detached sort of amusement. It wasn't every day you saw one of your classmates wrestle a giant rodent.

Though it did get old eventually. Shikamaru made his way around the two, planning on leaving before either of them noticed, but it wasn't meant to be. Naruto caught sight of him before he was even a quarter of the way away.

"Hey! Where are you going, Shikamaru? Don't you want a ride home?" The blonde boy called to him.

Shikamaru didn't particularly want to spend even more time with Naruto today. He liked the guy well enough, but he was absolutely exhausting to be around for any length of time. So he wanted to say no...

But then he considered the fact that getting home sooner, would mean his mom would be slightly less angry. It also would mean that he'd be able to watch clouds as soon as he snuck away from her...

Shikamaru shrugged, "Eh, why not."

* * *

They were at the Nara compound in less time then he expected. Maybe there was something to this whole weasel-travel thing.

"You can just drop me here," he told the weasel, but it kept going.

"Nah, it's okay," the weasel replied, "I remember how to get there."

"Eh? You've been here before, Chi-chan?" Naruto asked, probably a little too loudly considering the wince Chi gave.

"Yeah, Maru and I used to live here," the weasel replied.

"Oh yeah, she was married to Shikamaru's dad's brother," Naruto recalled, still too loudly for their furry chauffer's ears.

"Uncle, Naruto. The word you're trying for is uncle," Shikamaru replied. How did he not even know such a simple word? Honestly, he was so annoying.

"Yeah, yeah," Naruto waved a hand back at his companion, "So she was, like, kinda related to you, yeah?"

Shikamaru sighed, "That would make her my aunt, yes." He didn't particularly care who the woman was, she wasn't particularly active in his life. He hadn't even heard of her until the other day and when he'd asked his dad about it, all he'd gotten was a brush off. Whatever, it didn't matter. He didn't need to make his life harder by adding extra complications like a secret family member he'd never been told about.

He realized Naruto had been talking only after the boy bopped him on the head with a fist.

"What?" he grumbled, rubbing the spot where Naruto had hit him. It was an action borne more out of indignation than pain.

"I told you, already, lazy! We're here," the blonde gestured to the building in front of him.

Shikamaru grumbled as he slid off of the weasel's back, hoping that Naruto's shouting wouldn't alert his mother to his presence. If he could just sneak away before she-

"Shikamaru? Is that you?"

Crap.

Nara Yoshino slapped open of the shoji to their home. She looked mad, but she was always mad. What mattered to Shikamaru was how mad she was today.

To his surprise, the anger faded from her face and transformed into a look of pure astonishment.

"Chi?" she breathed, nearly dropping the dish she'd been drying beforehand.

* * *

A/N: Hey, I'm not dead. Neither is this fic, thankfully. I've left y'all with a particularly long chapter as an apology. This first handful of chapters are going to be pretty slow, but I will essentially be completely re-writing the entirety of both Naruto and Shippuden, so...Criminy this is going to be a long series.


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